51 RI Students Named National Merit Scholarship Semi-Finalists

RHODE ISLAND — The National Merit Scholarship Corporation selected 16,000 students from across the country as semifinalists in the 2021 program, including 51 from Rhode Island.

At the beginning of each school year, the NMSC reveals the students who will go on to compete for scholarships in the spring. About 7,500 of the original 16,000 semifinalists win scholarships.
The semifinalist round is determined by the results of the pre-SAT tests taken by about 1.5 million high school juniors nationwide during the previous school year. The list of semifinalists will be winnowed down to about 15,000 by early 2022, and those students will submit applications to get scholarships.

The scholarships awarded in the spring range in value, with the highest at $2,500.

Rhode Island's semifinalists are listed below, by community.

Barrington

Barrington High School

• Alverson, Morgan
• Bai, Hannah
• Buka, Benjamin T.
• Douglas, Julia F.
• Dreier, Lucy B.
• Goldstein, Yael S.
• Lapczyk, Martin M.
• Rego, Andrew D.
• Schultz, Caleb P.

Bristol

Mount Hope High School

• Mehta, Aditi

Cranston

Cranston High School West

• Parente, Mikaya C.

Homeschooled

• Marek, Kalliana J.

Cumberland

Blackstone Valley Prep High School

• Barden, William C.

Cumberland High School

• Vitkin, Kaitlyn E.

East Greenwich

East Greenwich High School

• Gomez, Sara M.
• Kelly, Clyde M.
• Xu, Julia S.

Rocky Hill Country Day School

• Gross, Julian W.

East Providence

East Providence Country Day School

• Vocke, Kolby J.

Lincoln

William M. Davies Career and Tech High School

• White, Chapman C.

Lincoln High School

• Chatragadda, Lohith S.

Narragansett

Narragansett High School

• Soloff, Curtis J.

North Kingstown

North Kingstown High School

• Beson, David I.
• Egan, Molly E.
• Junge, Evangeline G.

North Providence

North Providence High School

• Zhuang, Paula

North Smithfield

North Smithfield High School

• Daigneault, Ethan B.

Portsmouth

Portsmouth High School

• Chytka, Maria A.

Providence

Moses Brown School

• Lai, Kevin
• Lambert, Casey B.
• Weisbord, Elias J.
• Xing, Runpeng

Classical High School

• Carr, Simon
• Flores, Anna
• Healey, Samuel D.
• Hofhansel, Peter
• Hurtado Solberg, Elena
• Klein, Abigail

Homeschooled

• Hain, Madeleine M.

La Salle Academy

• Dillon, Caden M.
• Richard, Lauren N.

Lincoln School

• Comiskey, Sophia E.

Wheeler School

• Chirkov, Paul A.
• Dal Bo, Manuel
• Gruber, Hannah R.
• Homer, Maxwell Y.
• Krex, Spencer W.
• Medina, Noah A.

Smithfield

Smithfield High School

• Reilly, Aleksander R.

Wakefield

South Kingstown High School

• Desimone, Stella G.

Warwick

Toll Gate High School

• Randall, Sydney J.

Woonsocket

Mount Saint Charles Academy

• Boddy, Michael