Clarke Central High School seniors Noah Kilpatrick (left) and Olivia Bergman (right) are National Merit Scholarship semi-finalists, now competing for the title of finalist. Both Kilpatrick and Bergman scored a perfect score of 1520 on their PSAT, which earned them the honor of NMSP semi-finalist, with finalists to be announced in March of 2026. “When I took the SAT, it was still on paper, so it was very strange because I was adjusting from SAT to PSAT as well as adjusting from paper to digital,” Bergman said. Graphic by Peter Atchley
CCHS seniors Noah Kilpatrick and Olivia Bergman earned perfect scores on the PSAT, making them both National Merit Scholarship semi-finalists.
With perfect scores of 1520 on the PSAT, Clarke Central High School seniors Noah Kilpatrick and Olivia Bergman are CCHS’s 2026 National Merit Scholarship Program semi-finalists.
The NMSP is an annual academic competition for high school juniors that began in 1955, awarding about 15,000 finalists with a scholarship of $2,500. Bergman and Kilpatrick join roughly 16,000 other semi-finalists across the nation based on the PSAT scores from fall of 2024.
“I knew I was going to (to be a semi-finalist) because nobody scored higher than me. Plenty of people scored well, but nobody scored higher because you can’t,” Kilpatrick said. “This next phase, it’s an actual application, so it’s a little bit more relative (to the applicant).”
“I’m just so proud of (Bergman and Kilpatrick) and excited for where they’re going. I hope that they continue to advance in the competition.”
— Dr. Summer Smith,
CCHS Testing Coordinator and Assistant Principal
To be considered for finalist recognition, all NMSP semi-finalists had to submit an online application by Oct. 8, which required a personal essay about a student’s school philosophy and a letter of recommendation from a person of their choice. Winners of the scholarship will be announced in March of 2026.
“For me personally, (qualifying) was more about the prestige, because (NMSP) is a highly prestigious scholarship,” Kilpatrick said. “The monetary value of the scholarship itself is not all that much on the scale of scholarships. It’s $2,500 at the max, which is a lot, and I’d certainly appreciate the money, but this one’s more about the prestige.”
While only juniors can qualify for the 2027 NMSP, all current CCHS sophomores are automatically signed up by CCHS administration for the PSAT, which will take place on Oct. 23. Students in other grades can sign up as well. To earn semi-finalist status for the scholarship, students score must meet the predetermined Section Index, like both Kilpatrick and Bergman.
“I’m just so proud of (Bergman and Kilpatrick) and excited for where they’re going. I hope that they continue to advance in the competition,” CCHS Testing Coordinator and Assistant Principal Dr. Summer Smith said. “Even if they don’t (win), they have already achieved something that the majority of people who took (the PSAT) did not.”
