Officials of the National Merit Scholarship Corporation have announced that 11 Baylor seniors have been named semifinalists in the 72nd annual National Merit Scholarship Program, more than any other school in the Chattanooga area, while eight Baylor seniors have earned commended honors.

Baylor’s National Merit semifinalists are Luke Allen, Ananya Chakraborty, James Chatard, Christopher Farnham, Max Guo, Shirley Huang, Jack Houston, Avery Levin, Owen McKenna, Elly Wu and William Yao.  They were among the 16,000 highest scorers nationwide and now have the opportunity to continue in the competition for National Merit Scholarships, which will be awarded next spring.

Their recognition is based on their performance as juniors on the Preliminary SAT/National Merit Scholarship Qualifying Test.  Of the 1.3 million juniors in about 20,000 high schools who entered the 2026 National Merit Scholarship Program by taking the 2024 Preliminary SAT/National Merit Scholarship Qualifying Test, which served as an initial screen of program entrants

In addition, eight seniors have been named NMSC Commended Students, all of whom placed among the top 34,000 scorers throughout the U.S. and were recognized for their exceptional academic promise.  Baylor’s Commended Students are Caroline Daniel, Warren Kim, George Simpson, Sophia He, Russell Boyd, Ansh Patel, Anna Pakis and Ashley Bean.