Semifinalists Named in the 2012 National Merit® Scholarship Program

[Howard Hartman]

Semifinalists Named in the 2012 National Merit® Scholarship Program

196 Semifinalists in Public, Private, and Home Schools

List of seminfinalists

Public Schools: Albert Einstein, Bethesda-Chevy Chase, James Hubert Blake, Montgomery Blair, Paint Branch, Poolesville, Quince Orchard, Richard Montgomery, Sherwood, Springbrook, Thomas S. Wootton, Walter Johnson, Walt Whitman, Winston Churchill

Private Schools: Charles E. Smith Jewish Day School, Georgetown Preparatory, Heights School, Holton Arms School, Landon School, Melvin J. Berman Hebrew Academy, Sandy Spring Friends School, Stone Ridge School of the Sacred Heart, The Barrie School, Yang Academy, Yeshiva of Greater Washington

(Evanston, Illinois) Today officials of National Merit Scholarship Corporation (MNSC) announced the names of approximately 16,000 Semifinalists in the 57th annual National Merit Scholarship Program. These academically talented high school seniors have an opportunity to continue in the competition for some 8,300 National Merit Scholarships worth more than $34 million that will be offered next spring. To be considered for a Merit Scholarship® award, Semifinalists must fulfill several requirements to advance to the Finalist level of the competition.

About 90 percent of the Semifinalists are expected to attain Finalist standing, and more than half of the Finalists will win a National Merit Scholarship, earning the Merit Scholar® title. NMSC, a not-for-profit organization that operates without government assistance, was established in 1955 specifically to conduct the annual National Merit Scholarship Program. Scholarships are underwritten by NMSC with its own funds and by approximately 440 business organizations and higher education institutions that share NMSC’s goals of honoring the nation’s scholastic champions and encouraging the pursuit of academic excellence.

Steps in the Competition

About 1.5 million juniors in some 22,000 high schools entered the 2012 National Merit Scholarship Program by taking the 2010 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. 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 high school principal, and earn sat scores that confirm the student's earlier performance on the qualifying test. The Semifinalist and a high school official must submit a detailed scholarship application, which includes the student's essay and information about the Semifinalist’s participation and leadership in school and community activities.

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 Finalist group. 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 2012. 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 240 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 200 colleges and universities are expected to finance some 4,800 college-sponsored Merit Scholarship awards for Finalists who will attend the sponsor institution.

National Merit Scholarship winners of 2012 will be announced in four nationwide news releases beginning in April and concluding in July. These scholarship recipients will join more than 283,000 other distinguished young people who have earned the Merit Scholar title.

57th Annual National Merit Scholarship Semifinalists

Public Schools

Albert Einstein

Lourie, Jacob


Bethesda-Chevy Chase

Derr, Susannah	Halikias, Dimitrios	Himwich, Elizabeth	Leipold, Catherina
McConnell, Darcy	Nega, Philip	Popper, Kayla	Sax, Alexander
Schwartz, Ezra	Schwartz, Nathaniel	Sebrechts, Luc	Shehata, Laila
van Ekdom, Noah	Weisman, Theodore

James Hubert Blake

Livingstone, Colleen


Montgomery Blair

Anahtar, Melodi	Anderson, Michael	Arbacher, Rebecca	Avakova, Alla
Bal, Rajan	Brimmer, Nicole	Brown, Laurel	Byun, Hyung
Castagna, Richard	Chen, Robert	Chen, Sailunsi	Ewel, Adam
Gilbert, Andrew	Grant, David	Ho, Justin	Hsiao, Enoch
Hu, Andrew	Hu, Emily	Hu, Tianyi	Jackson, Zoe
Johnson, Elisa	Kaufman, David	Kaufman, Lori	Kaul, Shiv
Kehne, Gregory	Koehler, Frederic	Lei, Maureen	Leung, Sherman
Liou, Austin	Lu, Andrew	Lu, Nina	Machielse, Bartholomeus
Ng, Nathan	Offertaler, Eszter	Ostriker, Abigail	Pai, Victoria
Rubin, Naomi	Shepherdson, James	Shi, Mengdi	Sinozich, Sofi
Tien-Street, Brian	Wang, Jared	Waychoff, Kathryn	Weatherwax, Colleen

Poolesville

Abutaleb, Nadia	Chen, Pei-Nan	Harrison, Eric	Harrison, Kevin
Kang, Brian	Lozier, Catherine	Lu, Gabriel	Luo, Beidi
Parker, Melissa	Rhode, Cameron	Wu, Yuting	Zhu, Jack

Quince Orchard

Chen, Jane


Richard Montgomery

An, Janet	Axley, Elizabeth	Barclay, Kari	Berman, Aaron
DiMambro, Emily	Galitsky, Daniel	Gan, Cynthia	Gang, Yumen
Gaynor, Brian	Hamilton, David	Hsieh, Kuangjen	Huang, Paula
Itskowitz, Jesse	Jakubowski, Cayla	Kau, Hau-Jiun	Kim, Janet
Kram, Zachary	Kwon, Somin	Lawler, Christopher	Lazarus, Gabriel
Lee, Eunah	Li, Jiaqi	Liu, Clare	Lu, Lucia
Nelligan, Jacqueline	Park, Esther	Prillaman, Ruth	Reback, Samantha
Roberts, Michael	Schank, Nicolas	Shi, Adam	Tan, Hanson
Wang, Roger	Weng, Kathleen	Xie, Alan	Xu, Kathleen
Xu, Yingzhe	Ying, Victor	Zhao, Andrew

Sherwood

Frank, Daniel


Springbrook

Mair, Nicole

Ridgway, Gregory

Thomas S. Wootton

Bhatnagar, Kavita	Chang, Alice	Dhara, Sanjeev	Du, Matthew
Ji, Catherine	Krishnamurthy, Narain	Ramaswamy, Meghna	Song, Jiyoon
Spotnitz, Matthew	Wainger, Julia	Wong, Christopher	Zhao, Xiyang

Walt Whitman

Bartholomew, Claire	Bartlett, Elizabeth	Carroll, Lydia	Chen, Lucy
Cheng, Kevin	Clarkson, Brian	Delacour, Thomas	Franklin, Stephanie
Levy, Lauren	Milzman, Daniel	Payne, Kaitlin	Phillips, Alexandra
Pollowitz, Ryan	Rabner, Nathaniel	Rajaram, Amartya	Ryba, Anna
Smitham, Basil	Steinberg, Jeremy	Taswell, Jacob	Tyan, Kevin

Walter Johnson

Agha, Omar	Chen, Christina	Clarke, Caldwell	Horowitz, Russell
Kim, Nayeon	Liu, Catherine	Murnane, Laura	Rao, Denali
Smith, Natalie

Winston Churchill

Bontempo, Brian	Bourg, Charlotte	Chen, Lyon	Gritz, Derek
Guan, Nancy	Hildreth, Christine	Lai, Ariel	Li, Raymond
Linn, Anthony	Preuss, Joshua	Stackhouse, George	Yiin, Cindy
Zheng, Cindy

Private Schools and Home Schooled

Charles E. Smith Jewish Day School

Benheim, Jaime	Berger, Alexander	Kimchi, Oferr	Liss, Daniel
Zweben, Noah

Georgetown Preparatory School

Udegbe, Byron


Heights School

Buono, Michael

Holton Arms School

Gathright, Jennifer

Gordon, Haley

Mark, Kathleen

Landon School

Chen, Mitchell

Harris, Michael

Kindfuller, Vincent

Melvin J. Berman Hebrew Academy

Gross, Gabriel	Kardon, Jason	Kates, Izzy	Knizhnik, Gedaliah
Kritz, Matthew	Porat, Adina	Rabinowitz, Jacob	Schloss, Jesse
Troy, Aaron

Sandy Spring Friends School

McAdams, Eric


Stone Ridge School of the Sacred Heart

Master, Elizabeth


The Barrie School

Taylor, Clark


Yeshiva of Greater Washington

Bergman, Elil


Yang Academy

Yang, Joyce

Home Schooled

Keen, Eric

The names National Merit, Merit Scholarship, and Merit Scholar are federally registered service marks of National Merit Scholarship Corporation. PSAT/NMSQT is a registered trademark of National Merit Scholarship Corporation and the College Board.