There are 16,000 semifinalists in the National Merit Scholarship Program each year, and this year, one of them hails from Yuma.
Samantha Chulamorkodt, a Cibola High School senior, was recently named a semifinalist in the 2026 National Merit Scholarship Corporation competition.
“I’m really honored to receive this recognition and excited for the opportunities that it opens for my future,” Chulamorkodt said.
According to the Yuma Union High School District, juniors entered the program by taking the 2024 Preliminary SAT/National Merit Scholarship Qualifying Test (PSAT/NMSQT), which served as an initial screening for entrants.
The nationwide pool of semifinalists, representing less than 1% of high school seniors in the U.S., includes the highest-scoring entrants in each state.
"Samantha has worked very hard on having success academically both here at Cibola and Arizona Western College,” CHS school counselor Kevin Swearingin said. “She is a pleasure to work with and has many options to choose from for her future career.”
Chulamorkodt has attended various university programs around the country. She participated in the Research Science Institute summer program at MIT and the Summer Science Program at New Mexico State University, where she tracked near-Earth asteroid UL21.
To become a finalist, Chulamorkodt must submit a detailed scholarship application, have an outstanding academic record, be endorsed and recommended by a high school official, write an essay, and earn SAT or ACT scores that confirm her earlier performance on the qualifying test.
Per NMSC, 7,590 finalists will be selected to receive a Merit Scholarship award. The types of scholarships do vary, but they include the National Merit $2,500 Scholarship, corporate-sponsored scholarships and college-sponsored scholarships.
"Scholarship recipients are the candidates judged to have the greatest potential for success in rigorous college studies and beyond," NMSC's website states.
If Chulamorkodt becomes a finalist, she'll know by February 2026. If she wins a scholarship, she'll know by the end of March 2026.
This reporting is supported by a grant from the Arizona Local News Foundation.
