National Merit Semifinalists Announced

From School District 203

The National Merit Scholarship Corporation (NMSC) has named 44 members of the District 203 Class of 2011 among nearly 16,000 Semifinalists in the 55th annual NMSC program.

Naperville Central seniors honored as Semifinalists were: Brandon Chang, Laura Gallagher, Sarah Han, Lily Hanrath, Kevin Hu, Claire Jia, Kristin Johnson, Claire Lee, Krystle Leung, Rebecca Lullo, Allison Madonia, Nicole Russell, Thaddeus Schmitt, Sarvesh Somisetty, Isaac Swetlitz, Stephanie Tang, Charles Tschirhart, Dennis Zhan, Michael Zhou, Qianru Zhao, Jenny Zhou, and Danielle Zhu.

Naperville North High School seniors honored as Semifinalists were: Mihirtej Boddupalli, Alexandria Brouzis, Raahul Buch, Anna Castillo, Katelyn Cesarotti, Vincent Chang, Michael Fitz, Anastassia Golovashkina, Natalie Harrison, Kelsey Heyson, Kevin Huang, Mika Latimer, Maxwell Lu, Rabeya Mallick, Margaret Marcinkowski, Ashley Miller, Claire Pitstick, Zachary Reizner, Sarvottam Salvi, Margaret Shang, Phillip Tanner, and Sherry Tseng.

These academically talented high school seniors have an opportunity to continue in the competition for some 8,200 Merit Scholarship awards, worth more than $36 million, that will be offered next spring.

To be considered for a Merit Scholarship award, Semifinalists must advance to the Finalist level of the competition by fulfilling several requirements. About 90 percent of the Semifinalists are expected to attain Finalist standing, and approximately half of the Finalists will be selected as Merit Scholarship winners, earning the Merit Scholar title.

More than 1.5 million juniors in some 22,000 high schools entered the 2011 National Merit Program by taking the 2009 Preliminary SAT/National Merit Scholarship Qualifying Test (PSAT/NMSQT), which served as an initial screen of program entrants. The nationwide pool of Semifinalists, which represents less than one percent of 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.

To become a Finalist, a Semifinalist must have an outstanding academic record throughout high school, be endorsed and recommended by the school principal, and earn SAT scores that confirm the student's earlier qualifying test performance. The Semifinalist and a school official must submit a detailed scholarship application, which includes the student's self descriptive essay and information about participation and leadership in school and community activities. Finalists are announced in March of each year.