photo by: Contributed

Marcella MacGonagle

Bishop Seabury Academy has announced that student Marcella MacGonagle has been named as a National Merit semifinalist.

She is one of seven students in the Lawrence area who have received the honor.

On Wednesday, the National Merit Scholarship Corporation – a nonprofit established in 1955 to conduct the annual National Merit Scholarship Program — named more than 16,000 semifinalists for the program.

The semifinalists from the Lawrence district are Eli Cokelet, James Gassmann, Nathaniel Kramer, Isaac Mosier and Neel Sabarwal, according to a press release from the district. The district updated its release Thursday to also include Emma Ryan, who is a Lenexa home-schooled/online student enrolled with the Lawrence Virtual School. Bishop Seabury, which MacGonagle attends, is a private school.

More than 1.3 million juniors from about 20,000 high schools entered the 2026 National Merit Scholarship Program by taking the Preliminary SAT/National Merit Scholarship Qualifying Test in 2024. Semifinalists, representing fewer than 1% of U.S. seniors, are the highest scorers in each state, with numbers proportional to each state’s share of graduating seniors.

About 6,900 of the students who are now semifinalists will receive National Merit Scholarship awards next spring. To be considered, they will have to submit an application with academic records, extracurriculars, leadership, and honors; be recommended by a school official; write an essay; and earn SAT or ACT scores confirming their performance on the preliminary test. Some of the National Merit Scholarships are $2,500 awards that all finalists are considered for. Others, which vary in their award amounts, are sponsored by businesses or universities and can only be given to finalists who meet certain criteria, such as planning to attend the university or having a parent who works for the company sponsoring the award.

The National Merit Scholarship winners for 2026 will be announced between April and July.