Kirkland Students Named National Merit Scholarship Semifinalists

Two Kirkland teens, Lake Washington High School students Mark Hedreen and Hayden Stockwell, were among 32 Lake Washington School District students named National Merit Scholarship semifinalists. 

Gloria Liu, a Redmond teen who attends Juanita High School, also was named a semifinalist, as were five students at the International Community School: Jack Eggleston, Aishwarya Nirmal, and Anwell Wang, all of Redmond; and Brandon McNerney and Kathleen Park  of Sammamish.

As announced by the National Merit Scholarship Corporation (NMSC), 32 Lake Washington School District (LWSD) high school seniors qualified as semifinalists in the 59th annual National Merit Scholarship Program.

A total of 16,000 academically talented high school seniors nationwide have qualified. About 15,000 are expected to advance to the Finalist level, and in February they will be notified of this designation. These students will have the opportunity to continue in the competition for some 8,000 National Merit Scholarships, worth more than $35 million, that will be offered next spring.

Students qualified for these awards by completing the 2012 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 U.S. high school seniors, includes the highest scoring entrants in each state.

Redmond High School had the highest number of recipients in the district, with 17 students named as semifinalists.

Here's the complete list of LWSD semifinalists:

Lake Washington School District National Merit Semifinalists:

Eastlake High School: Nikhil Auradkar (Sammamish), Richard Baron (Sammamish), Ryan Holmdahl (Redmond), James McCutcheon (Sammamish), Amanda Qu (Sammamish), Nicholas Randolph (Sammamish) and Nikila Venugopal(Sammamish).

International Community School: Jack Eggleston (Redmond), Brandon McNerney (Sammamish), Aishwarya Nirmal (Redmond), Kathleen Park (Sammamish) and Anwell Wang (Redmond).

Juanita High School: Gloria Liu (Redmond)

Lake Washington High School: Mark Hedreen (Kirkland) and Hayden Stockwell (Kirkland)

Redmond High School: Cameron Akker (Sammamish), Sahana Cidambi (Redmond), Anton de Leon (Redmond), Aaron Dietrich (Sammamish), Sarang Joshi (Redmond), Dasha Kadatch (Redmond), Samhita Karnati(Sammamish), Andrew Li (Sammamish), Nathan Moon (Redmond), Meghana Noonavath (Redmond), Hannah Parish (Redmond), Jennifer Perry (Redmond), Deanna Ren (Redmond), Margaret Robinson (Redmond), Emily Rockhill (Redmond), Hannah Yang (Redmond)and Alex Zhou (Redmond).

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About Lake Washington: Lake Washington School District  is a high-performing public school district serving Kirkland, Redmond, and Sammamish, Washington. It is the sixth largest district in the state of Washington, with over 24,500 students in 51 schools.