PLEASANT HILL, Calif. – September 21, 2020 –Recently, officials of National Merit Scholarship Corporation (NMSC) announced the names of approximately 16,000 Semifinalists in the 66th annual National Merit Scholarship Program. These academically talented high school seniors have an opportunity to continue in the competition for some 7,600 National Merit Scholarships worth more than $30 million that will be offered next spring.
Contra Costa County is well-represented with 96 semifinalists (student names, schools, and towns listed below).
To be considered for a Merit Scholarship® award, Semifinalists must fulfil several requirements to advance to the Finalist level of the competition. Over 90 percent of the Semifinalists are expected to attain Finalist standing, and more than half of the Finalists will win a National Merit Scholarship, earning the Merit Scholar® title.
“We could not be prouder of our county’s National Merit Scholarship semifinalists,” Contra Costa County Superintendent of Schools Lynn Mackey said. “This past school year has been a very busy and challenging period for our honored group, yet they found the time to file a comprehensive scholarship registration form and write a detail essay, while also maintaining a stellar academic record, earning scholastic awards and honors, and much more. We also salute these students’ families and teachers for their support.”
NMSC, a not-for-profit organization that operates without government assistance, was established in 1955 specifically to conduct the annual National Merit Scholarship Program. To learn more about the NMSC, please visit their website.
Program Steps in the 2021 Competition
More than 1.5 million juniors in about 21,000 high schools entered the 2021 National Merit Scholarship Program by taking the 2019 Preliminary SAT/National Merit Scholarship Qualifying Test (PSAT/NMSQT®), which served as an initial screen of program entrants. The nationwide pool of Semifinalists, representing less than one percent of U.S. high school seniors, includes the highest-scoring entrants in each state. The number of Semifinalists in a state is proportional to the state’s percentage of the national total of graduating seniors.
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. All National Merit Scholarship winners will be selected from this group of Finalists. Merit Scholar designees are selected on the basis of their skills, accomplishments, and potential for success in rigorous college studies, without regard to gender, race, ethnic origin, or religious preference.
National Merit Scholarships
Three types of National Merit Scholarships will be offered in the spring of 2021. Every Finalist will compete for one of 2,500 National Merit® $2500 Scholarships that will be awarded on a state-representational basis. About 1,000 corporate-sponsored Merit Scholarship awards will be provided by approximately 220 corporations and business organizations for Finalists who meet their specified criteria, such as children of the grantor’s employees or residents of communities where sponsor plants or offices are located. In addition, about 180 colleges and universities are expected to finance some 4,100 college-sponsored Merit Scholarship awards for Finalists who will attend the sponsor institution.
National Merit Scholarship winners of 2021 will be announced in four nationwide news releases beginning in April and concluding in July. These scholarship recipients will join more than 353,000 other distinguished young people who have earned the Merit Scholar title.
This year’s Contra Costa County NMSC semifinalists:
BRENTWOOD
HERITAGE H.S.
Wallace, Spencer E.
CONCORD
DE LA SALLE H.S.
Vaughn, Ryan J.
Ygnacio Valley H.S.
Truong, Zia
DANVILLE
ATHENIAN SCHOOL
Liu, Sarah Mia S.
Maram, Alekhya
Shah, Adit A.
Zarbock, Radman T.
MONTE VISTA H.S.
Fattah, Zaid I.
He, Daniel
Kim, Joel S.
Li, Sean J.
Thilak, Rashmin
Toliver, Alicia K.
SAN RAMON VALLEY H.S.
Bray, Daniel G.
Ge, Izabella
Traore, Ynes T.
EL CERRITO
EL CERRITO H.S.
Lewis, Zachary
Merish Rose, Sophia
Norena, Carlos
Williams, Samuel
SUMMIT K2
Hung, Clara
LAFAYETTE
ACALANES H.S.
Feinberg, Kai W.
Lattin, Jamie E.
Mason, Morgan T.
Orlando, Isaiah F.
Payne, Madison A.
Steele, Jackson R.
BENTLEY SCHOOL
Kocs-Meyers, Dora M.
McManus, Nathaniel A.
MORAGA
CAMPOLINDO H.S.
Heidersbach, Zoe J.
Liao, Joshua R.
Seo, Noel J.
Stoyanov, Hari T.
ORINDA
HOMESCHOOL
Armstrong, Jack E.
Schroff, Jerrae C.
MIRAMONTE H.S.
Foster, Jenna Q.
Morganstein, Joshua T.
Nibley, Preston C.
Svahn, Sarah H.
Yu, Edwin Y.
PLEASANT HILL
COLLEGE PARK H. S.
Benabou, Samuel E.
Holden, Nathaniel
SAN RAMON
CALIFORNIA H. S.
Barranco Gonzalez, Andrea
Ganesan, Sriram
Gupta, Bhavya
Pasula, Shamith S.
Puliyadi, Vikram K.
Thomas, Nathaniel
Wang, Alexis J.
DOUGHERTY VALLEY H. S.
Anand, Kavya
Balaji, Nisha
Bhat, Savit
Chalamcharla, Akhil
Chatterjee, Aniket
Chen, Kevin
Chen, Steven L.
Dickenson, Ian A.
Garg, Arjun
Goyal, Sumedha
Iyengar, Aniketh N.
Kesani, Pranav S.
Kolli, Sumanth
Lahorani, Anish
Lee, Joseph G.
Li, Eric F.
Lim, Ian
LuoZhang, David Zhi
Moon, Kenneth H.
Nagapuri, Shruthi
Padisetti, Vedasamhitha
Pang, Darren S.
Patel, Aryan
Raju, Aditi
Ramesh, Amritha
Ranganathan, Sanjana
Ravikumar, Shreya
Sharma, Sonal
Shi, Katherine
Su, Stephanie F.
Sunder, Ajitesh
Vummarao, Salika
Wang, David
Wang, Timothy Y.
Ying, Joy W.
Yoo, John
Zeng, William W.
Zhang, Claire Z.
Zhang, Jennifer J.
Zhang, Paul Z.
WALNUT CREEK
LAS LOMAS H. S.
Melin, Samantha N.
Wang, Andrew Z.
Xie, Emily
NORTHGATE H. S.
Arona, James Kyle A.
Balashov, Alexis
Lee, Natasha J.
Nordberg, Ingrid E.
Wang, Caroline X.