PLEASANT HILL, Calif.--Contra Costa County Superintendent of Schools Lynn Mackey congratulated 107 high school seniors for being named Semifinalists in the 68th annual National Merit Scholarship Program.
Led by 58 students at Dougherty Valley High School in the San Ramon Valley Unified School District, there are 13 Contra Costa County high schools represented on the list of 16,000 Semifinalists.
Schools with Semifinalists include Dougherty Valley (58), California (12), Monte Vista (10), Athenian (7), Campolindo (5), Carondelet (3), San Ramon Valley (3), and Miramonte (2). Acalanes, Berean Christian, Clayton Valley, Los Lomas, and Ygnacio Valley each had one Semifinalist. Additionally, two Semifinalists (from Danville and Walnut Creek) are listed as homeschool students.
These high school seniors have an opportunity to continue in the competition for some 7,250 National Merit Scholarships worth nearly $28 million that will be offered next spring. To be considered for a Merit Scholarship award, Semifinalists must fulfill several requirements to advance to the Finalist level of the competition. About 95 percent 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.
High school juniors entered the 2023 National Merit Scholarship Program by taking the 2021 Preliminary SAT/National Merit Scholarship Qualifying Test (PSAT/NMSQT®), which served as an initial screen of program entrants. The nationwide group of Semifinalists represents less than one percent of U.S. high school seniors and includes the highest-scoring entrants in each state. 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. More information about the National Merit Scholarship program can be found online at https://www.nationalmerit.org/.
CONTRA COSTA COUNTY NATIONAL MERIT SCHOLARSHIP SEMIFINALISTS
ACALANES HIGH SCHOOL - 1
Riley K. Bonner
ATHENIAN SCHOOL - 7
Nathaniel R. Copeland,
Jack Cui
Kaveer A. Gera
Tavi D. Greenfield
Lucas C. Oppenheimer
Cameron Shaw
Alison M. Whiteside
BEREAN CHRISTIAN HIGH SCHOOL - 1
Matthew Lee
CALIFORNIA HIGH SCHOOL -12
Aggarwal, Mihir
Pranav Akella
Mihir S. Arya
Ridhi Goyal
Kian Kasad
Spandan Kottakota
Harshitha Palacharla
Ronit Prakash
Sriram S. Rajagopal
Ethan M. Shin
Andrew Xiong
Viraj Yadav
CAMPOLINDO HIGH SCHOOL -5
John G. Dong
Taewoo Kim
Kaya A. Lu
Aaron Z. Xie
Evonne Xu
CARONDELET HIGH SCHOOL -3
Elise G. Coyle
Marie K. Daniel
Macy M. Lehrer
CLAYTON VALLEY CHARTER HIGH SCHOOL -1
Jessica Johal
DOUGHERTY VALLEY HIGH SCHOOL -58
Ayan Bhatia
Arav Bhattacharya
Manav Bokinala
Pranay Boreddy
Eshwar Chandrasekhar
Nicholas Chang
Caitlin Chen
Kristen Chen
Avanish Davuluri
Aniket Dey
Yanzhe Feng
Sree Krishna Chandra Gelle
Neela Gooty
Adrian Gore
Prerana Gowda
Arnav Hampapur
Anthony Han
Yifei Han
Aditya Jain
Navya Kancharla
Sashvath Koyi
Ian Kreider
Adam La
Julian La
Alexander Lee
Olivia Li
Isaac Liu
Jameson Liu
Diego Menendez
Mitali Mittal
Hamza Mohiuddin
Nihal Nadipally
Ryaken Nakamoto
Riyanka Narasimhan
Sandhya Nayar
Avantika Pandiyan
Fiona Peng
Olivia Phongsa
Destiny Pinto
Lohit Potnuru
Prabhav Pragash
Arjun Reddy
Neel Redkar
Sarveshan Saravanan
Rhea Shetti
Sarah J. Stadermann
Manahil Syeda
Anirudh Tenneti
Ananya Vittaladevuni
Daphne Wang
Xiaotong Xiong
Naimah Yadav
Grace Yang
Vibha Yarlagadda
Brianna Zhang
Grace Zhao
Jesse Zhao
Wong Zhao
HOMESCHOOL -2
Elane Kim – Walnut Creek
Timothy A. Posselt - Danville
LOS LOMAS HIGH SCHOOL -1
Bogdan Yaremenko
MIRAMONTE HIGH SCHOOL -2
Alexander Aoki
Marina S. Kim
MONTE VISTA HIGH SCHOOL -10
Sabrina E. Brandeis
Kailey Emmons
Isha Jain
Lucas Johansson
Vishaan Joshi
Kevin Ouyang
Aric Shen
Samira Sinha
Parker Watson
Haoqing Ye
YGNACIO VALLEY HIGH SCHOOL -1
Iris M. Khaund
SAN RAMON VALLEY HIGH SCHOOL -3
Anneka Lupinek
Elizabeth Teryoshin
Ashlyn M. Widmer
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