Rio Rancho valedictorian Jacob Rice wins National Merit scholarship

Jacob Rice’s senior year at Rio Rancho High School ended with a full-ride scholarship to the University of Alabama, turning the 2026 valedictorian’s graduation spotlight into a major college opportunity. The National Merit Scholarship Corporation named Rice a National Merit Scholar, and the award will cover his path to Tuscaloosa as he prepares to study aerospace engineering.

Rice was one of just 15 New Mexicans recognized in the program’s third round of awards this year, a level of selectivity that makes his win stand out in Sandoval County and across the state. Rio Rancho High School is the only Rio Rancho campus represented among New Mexico’s awardees, giving the school a local distinction as one of its top academic performers heads to one of the nation’s best-known scholarship pipelines.

The scholarship mattered in Rice’s college decision. He had first been interested in Miami University in Ohio, where his sister attended, but the aid package there did not match what Alabama offered. Once he saw that Alabama paired a strong engineering reputation with scholarship support that made the degree affordable, Rice said the choice became straightforward.

His interest in aerospace engineering was shaped in part by Artemis II, NASA’s first crewed flight beyond Earth orbit since Apollo 17. NASA says the mission launched on April 1, 2026, splashed down on April 10, and lasted 9 days, 1 hour and 32 minutes. Rice’s family history also points toward flight: he comes from a hot-air-balloon family, and his father, Brad Rice, once flew balloons professionally.

Rice’s award also shows how narrow the National Merit path can be. The 2026 competition began with the 2024 PSAT/NMSQT, and more than 16,000 students were named semifinalists in September 2025. National Merit Scholarship Corporation says the program will end with about 6,700 Scholars total, including roughly 3,500 college-sponsored winners announced across the June and July release windows. Those college-sponsored awards are typically worth $500 to $2,000 a year for up to four years.

At Alabama, National Merit Finalists are offered a package that includes 10 semesters of tuition, and the university says finalists should submit application materials by December 5 for priority scholarship consideration. For Sandoval County families watching Rice’s path from Rio Rancho High to a nationally competitive engineering program, his scholarship shows what a strong academic record, counseling support and a well-timed application can produce, while also underscoring how much of that opportunity goes to a small slice of students at the very top of the class.