Thirty students of Montgomery High School have been named National Merit Scholarship semifinalists.
There were 16,000 semifinalists in the 67th annual National Merit Scholarship Program, according to information provided by the organization.
These academically talented high school seniors have an opportunity to continue in the competition for some 7,500 National Merit Scholarships worth nearly $30 million that will be offered next spring.
The students from Montgomery High are:
Abhay Benoy, Bonnie S. Chen, Lilly Champa Das, Stefan Elez, Meghan Naga Gajula, Aarush Gupta, Yizhou Hong, William Andrew Hou, Ashley Eunyoung Kim, Rithvik Kommareddy;
Thomas Jinwoo Lee, Eric Yicheng Li, Madison Nicole Li, Sean Andrew Liu, Ethan Thomas Mathew, Zain Imran Mughal, Sami Muhammad, Harsh Darshan Panchal, Ian Davis Purkis, Royce Sun;
Shrivatsa Thakur, Neha Vardhaman, Siddharth Vinayak Vecham, Sanjana Shreya Venkatesh, Andrew Bochen Wan, Annabelle Sophia Wang, Aaron Xi, Andy Xin, Hedy Hailing Yang and Melanie Yingshan Zhang.
To be considered for a Merit Scholarship award, semifinalists must fulfill several requirements to advance to the finalist level of the competition. About 95% of the semifinalists are expected to attain finalist standing, and approximately half of the finalists will win a National Merit Scholarship, earning the Merit Scholar title, according to the statement.
High school juniors entered the 2022 National Merit Scholarship Program by taking the 2020 Preliminary SAT/National Merit Scholarship Qualifying Test, which served as an initial screen of program entrants.
The nationwide pool of semifinalists, representing less than 1% of U.S. high school seniors, includes the highest-scoring entrants in each state.
To become a finalist, the semifinalist and a high school official must submit a detailed application, in which they provide information about the semifinalist’s academic record, participation in school and community activities, demonstrated leadership abilities, employment, and honors and awards received.
From the approximately 16,000 semifinalists, about 15,000 are expected to advance to the finalist level, and in February they will be notified of this designation, according to the statement.
National Merit Scholarship winners of 2022 will be announced in four nationwide news releases beginning in April and concluding in July.
