De La Salle Senior Salter Named National Merit Scholarship Semifinalist

Concord, Calif. - Dr. Heather Alumbaugh, Vice President for Academic Life, announced today that De La Salle High School senior Heath Salter has been named a semifinalist for the 2026 National Merit Scholarship Program.

With the announcement of the semifinalists by the National Merit Scholarship Corporation (NMSC), Salter is one of 16,000 semifinalists in the 71st annual National Merit Scholarship Program, and will now compete for nearly 7,000 National Merit Scholarships, worth nearly $26 million that will be offered next spring.

National Merit Scholarship winners of 2026 will be announced in four nationwide news releases, beginning in April and concluding in July.

Over 1.3 million juniors in about 20,000 high schools entered the 2026 National Merit Scholarship Program by taking the 2024 Preliminary SAT/National Merit Scholarship Qualifying Test (PSAT/NMSQT), which served as an initial screen of program entrants. The nationwide pool of semifinalists, representing less than one percent of U.S. high school seniors, includes the highest-scoring entrants in each state. The number of semifinalists in a state is proportional to the state’s percentage of the national total of graduating seniors.  

To be considered for a Merit Scholarship award, semifinalists must fulfill several requirements to advance to the finalist level of the competition. Over 90 percent of the semifinalists are expected to attain finalist standing, and about half of the finalists will win a National Merit Scholarship, earning the Merit Scholar title.

For more information about the National Merit Scholarship Program, visit NationalMerit.org.

Dr. Alumbaugh invites you to join her in congratulating Heath Salter on his outstanding academic accomplishment.