75 Cobb Seniors Named Semifinalists for National Merit Scholarships

From Cobb County School District:

COBB COUNTY, GA - Officials of the National Merit Scholarship Corporation (NMSC) have announced the names of approximately 16,000 semifinalists in the 62nd annual National Merit Scholarship Program. Seventy-five students from the Cobb County School District were named semifinalists. This is more than a 30 percent increase over the 56 Cobb semifinalists in 2015. The nationwide pool of semifinalists represents less than one percent of U.S. high school seniors.

These academically talented high school seniors have an opportunity to continue in the competition for some 7,500 National Merit Scholarships worth about $33 million that will be offered next spring. About 90 percent of the semifinalists are expected to attain finalist standing, and about half of the finalists will win a National Merit Scholarship, earning the Merit Scholar® title.

Cobb County School District National Merit Semifinalists:

Allatoona High School
William A. Smith
Harrison High School
Thomas V. Perkins
Kennesaw Mountain High School
Madelyn R. Focaracci
Auburn Ford
Connor A. Truono
Lassiter High School
Kelsey R. Archer
Christopher J. Freel
Marjorie A. Hutcherson
Olivia M. Marenda
Amanda K. Miller
Grace A. Naqi
Rachael L. Rankin
Pope High School
Matthew E. Anderson
Alex P. Erdman
Alexander J. Reedy
Andrew R. Thomas
Quinn S. Wyner
Walton High School
Anthony D. Bernard
Maxwell S. Burrows
Annie Chen
Donian I. Chyong
Christopher G. Daker
Ellen K. Dobo
Julia A. Edmunds
Sophia G. Foppa
Abigail V. Fortier
Ryan C. Heinrichs
Michael Y. Hu
Jason M. Judge
Trey D. Jurgens
Piyush G. Kancharlawar
Sindhu N. Kannappan
Sabrina Kaplan
Dylan K. Kim
Carl Liu
Vera Lu
Samantha L. McClendon
Julianna L. McNeice
Bianca Mers
Aurian O. Naderi
Abhi Nathan
Samuel Patterson
Aashka J. Sheth
Emily K. Surry
Jackson A. Thompson
Sarah Y. Tsai
Ralueke Vandenhoudt
Lucy S. Wang
Nathan S. Wu
Patrick L. Wu
Kaylen T. Xie
Jumshaid Yamin
Allen Zhang
Bryan Zhang
Kevin Zhang
Maxwell Zhou
Hillgrove High School
Destini J. Deinde-Smith
Nathan Hill
McEachern High School
William S. Adair
Campbell High School
Benjamin Davidson
Ben P. Kilpatrick
Michael S. Peng
Karan A. Pol
Wheeler High School
Mihir Bellamkonda
Sneha S. Divan
Jessie Liu
Shrey S. Nagnur
Trisha Pahawa
Vivek S. Pai
Noah P. Platt
Kathryn K. Porterfield
Virinchi Puligundla
Ajinkya Sawant
Angela K. Su
Samuel J. West

About 1.6 million juniors in more than 22,000 high schools entered the 2017 National Merit Scholarship Program by taking the 2015 Preliminary SAT/National Merit Scholarship Qualifying Test (PSAT/NMSQT®), which served as an initial screen of program entrants. The number of semifinalists in a state is proportional to the state’s percentage of the national total of graduating seniors.

To become a finalist, the semifinalist and his or her high school must submit a detailed scholarship 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. A semifinalist must have an outstanding academic record throughout high school, be endorsed and recommended by a high school official, write an essay, and earn SAT® scores that confirm the student’s earlier performance on the qualifying test.

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 2017. 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 230 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 190 colleges and universities are expected to finance some 4,000 college-sponsored Merit Scholarship awards for finalists who will attend the sponsor institution.

National Merit Scholarship winners of 2017 will be announced in four nationwide news releases beginning in April and concluding in July. These scholarship recipients will join more than 323,000 other distinguished young people who have earned the Merit Scholar title.

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