By Mark Hebert
September 21, 2023 - Thirty-seven Jefferson County Public Schools (JCPS) students are in the running for National Merit Scholarships. The 37 seniors have been named National Merit Semifinalists. The academically talented students have an opportunity to continue in the competition for some 7,140 National Merit Scholarships worth nearly $28 million that will be offered in the spring.
“Congratulations to these seniors who have earned this recognition,” said Dr. Marty Pollio, superintendent of JCPS. “Being a National Merit Semifinalist is a big deal. It’s also a reflection of the hard work these students have put in as well as the excellent JCPS teachers who have played a substantial role in their achievement and success.”
A Semifinalist must have an outstanding academic record throughout high school, be endorsed and recommended by a high school official, write an essay, and earn SAT or ACT scores that confirm the student’s earlier performance on the qualifying test.
The overwhelming majority of the 16,000 Semifinalists will advance to the Finalist level and be eligible for one of 2,500 National Merit $2500 Scholarships. Another 4,640 scholarships are financed by corporations and business organizations or institutions of higher learning.
The National Merit Scholarship Corporation (NMSC) is a not-for-profit organization that operates the program without government assistance. Scholarships are underwritten by NMSC with its own funds and by approximately 320 business organizations and higher education institutions that share NMSC’s goals of honoring the nation’s scholastic champions and encouraging the pursuit of academic excellence.
Here is a list of the JCPS Semifinalists and their high schools:
Atherton High School
Eli Turner
Ballard High School
Jaxson Liening
duPont Manual High School
Nathan Anil
Jaci Baker Green
Elizabeth Bryant
Natalie L. Caragianis
Amy Chen
Riley Davis
Prasit Dhungyel
Elizabeth Howard
Sai Javvadi
Shraman Kar
Kayoung Kim
Ruth Kouokam Monoue
Richard Lian
Samuel B. Limbong
Kevin Lin
Henry E. Martin
Elena Medley
Weston Miller
Lee T. Nagel
Ashley Park
Arjun Parmar
Rishabh Ranjan
Felix F. Rogers
Nithin Senthilvel
Anvitha R. Srineni
Anirudh Srinivasan
Gopalaniruddh Tadinada
Ishani Tarkar
Aiden Vilo
Padmapriya Viswakumar
Elizabeth B. Wallace
Angela Wang
William Warms
Yolanda Xie
Eastern High School
Aaron J. McDonald