5 Walnut Creek Students Named National Merit Scholarship Semifinalists

WALNUT CREEK, CA — Officials from the National Merit Scholarship Corporation released the names of more than 16,000 semifinalists in the 69th annual National Merit Scholarship Program on Wednesday, and five Walnut Creek students were among them.

The students were among the 16,000 semifinalists chosen from schools around the country. The high school seniors now have the opportunity to compete for 7,500 National Merit Scholarships worth over $30 million, which will be awarded next spring.

To be eligible for an award, semifinalists must meet a number of criteria in order to move to the finalist level of the competition.

Almost 95 percent of semifinalists are likely to advance to finalist status, and nearly half of the finalists will win a National Merit Scholarship, gaining the Merit Scholar designation.

There are two semifinalists from Northgate High School:

• Akash Abedin
• Sophia Carcamo

Kelly Cooper, principal at Northgate High School, congratulated the two students.

"We are so proud of our students Akash and Sophia for their semifinalist qualification towards the prestigious National Merit Scholarship," Cooper told Patch. "Their hard work and dedication to their studies is evident, and this honor is given to such a small percentage of students a year— they should be extremely proud."

Another three semifinalists are from Las Lomas High School:

• Ethan Kim
• Andrew Park
• Srihari Thirumaligai

The National Merit Scholarship Corporation, a nonprofit company that operates independently of the government, was founded in 1955 to administer the yearly National Merit Scholarship Program.

Scholarships are funded by the National Merit Scholarship Corporation and approximately 400 business organizations and higher education institutions that share the corporation's goals of honoring the nation's scholastic champions and encouraging academic excellence.

Steps In The 2024 Competition

High school juniors applied for the 2024 National Merit Scholarship Program by taking the 2020 Preliminary SAT/National Merit Scholarship Qualifying Test, which functioned as the program's initial screening.

The national pool of semifinalists, which represents less than one percent of high school seniors in the United States, contains the top scorers in each state. The number of semifinalists in a state is proportionate to the percentage of graduating seniors in the state.

To advance to the final round, the semifinalist and a high school official must submit a detailed scholarship application detailing the semifinalist's academic record, participation in school and community activities, demonstrated leadership abilities, employment, and honors and awards received.

A semifinalist must have an excellent academic record throughout high school, be sponsored and recommended by a high school authority, submit an essay, and get SAT or ACT results that corroborate previous achievement on the qualifying test.

From the approximately 16,000 semifinalists, approximately 15,000 are expected to advance to the finalist stage, and they will be notified of this distinction in February.