Dozens of Cupertino students among National Merit semifinalists
High school seniors vying for nearly $28 million in scholarships.
Dozens of Cupertino students are among nearly 1,140 high school seniors in the Bay Area recognized as semifinalists in the National Merit Scholarship Program. These students are among 16,000 semifinalists across the nation — less than 1% of the nation’s high school seniors — who will now be considered for around 7,140 scholarships worth nearly $28 million next spring.
It’s the third-to-last step in the process. About 95% of semifinalists are expected to be named finalists, and approximately half of those finalists will earn a scholarship. Over 1.3 million high school juniors in 21,000 high schools entered the competition through the 2022 Preliminary SAT/National Merit Scholarship Qualifying Test, or PSAT, which serves as the initial screening of program entrants. The semifinalists announced this week include the highest-scoring students in each state.
Cupertino semifinalists include Ashley Wang from Futures Academy.
Semifinalists from Cupertino High School are Anchita Arora, Anagha Badriprasad, Alyssa Chen, Soohan Cho, Tanmayi P. Dasari, Taisei C. De La Cruz, Arushi Desai, Alexander Du, Michael C. Feng, Beren Gao, Srikrishna K. Jandhyala, Minook Jung, Ryan Kim, Jihan Lee, Dean S.Liang, Katherine H. Min, Samikshaa S. Natarajan, Minseo Park, Kartikeya Pidaparthi, Andrew S. Qin, Saranya Raghavendra, Shyamak Singh, Nabeel M. Sonaseth, Skyler K. Tabofunda, Iris Wang, Tahlia Y. Wu and Sarah P. Zuo.
The three dozen Homestead High School semifinalists are Raghab N. Baruah, Elaine Cao, Arnav Chakravarthy, Payton C. Chung, David Dai, Avery S. Dodson, Alexander Y. Feng, Haochen Feng, Elisabeth I. Floyd, Albert S. Jung, Makaila H. Kim, Bryson J. Lee, Nathan S. Li, Conner Lu, Alan T. Ma, Grace E. McGoran, Scott F. Moore, Julian C.Ng-Thow-Hing, Mahi D. Patel, Nitya Peumans, Jennifer Ren, Vivian A. Reutens, Sahana P. Santhanam, Abigail J. Song, Hyeyoon Song, Ishwar Suriyaprakash,
Youngwoo Tahk, Alexander Y. Tian, Rohan J. Venkatesan, Rajiv Venkatesan, Nollan Xu, Hee Chan Yang, Jerry Yang, Sarah Yun, Alex R. Zhang and Johnny Zhang.
From Monta Vista High School, the semifinalists are Neehir Aeron, Nithya Appannagaari, Meggie Chen, Elise R. Chiu, Abhishek Y. Dandekar, Ishaan Desai, Rachael Ding, Sandhya M. Fasnacht, Koren Gila, Neal Jain, Brinda Jayasimha, Ananya V. Jilla, Sidharth N. Kalje, Sylvia Ker, Tanisha Kholiya, Gabriel Kok, Xiang Li, Eric Liu, Audrey M. Luu, Paarth Mishra, Ananya Nadathur, Harshitha Nandula, Aakash Parashar, Smriti Rangarajan, Carolyn Ruan, Aarush Sah, Yashnil Saha, Medha Singamsetty, Krithika Singh, Iniyaa Suresh, Yash D. Thapliyal, Irene Y. Tian, Vanshika Turkar, Lillian Wang, Alan Wen, Alexis K. Wong, William J. Wu, Evelyn Xie, Justin Xin, Brandon Xu, Sophie Z. Xu, Eva Yao, Amy Zhang, Amy X. Zheng and Andrew Y. Zhou.