Seven Riverside Unified Seniors Named National Merit Scholarship Semifinalists

Seven Riverside Unified School District (RUSD) seniors have been named Semifinalists in the 2027 National Merit® Scholarship Program, recognizing their outstanding academic achievement and placing them among the nation’s highest-scoring high school students.

RUSD’s honorees include Matthew B. Wilson of Arlington High School and six students from Martin Luther King High School: Erik Chen, Ian Do, Erin Nguyen-Khoa, Shivani Talati, Junhao Tan, and Erica Yin.

All seven semifinalists have the opportunity to continue in the competition for approximately 6,700 National Merit Scholarships. National Merit Scholarship winners of 2027 will be announced in four nationwide news releases beginning in April and concluding in July.

Winners of National Merit Scholarships are selected based on their academic records, accomplishments, leadership, activities, and potential for success in college. 

More than 1.2 million high school juniors from approximately 20,000 schools entered the 2027 National Merit Scholarship Program by taking the 2025 Preliminary SAT/National Merit Scholarship Qualifying Test (PSAT/NMSQT). The nationwide pool of more than 16,000 Semifinalists represents less than 1% of U.S. high school seniors.