Semifinalists Named in the 2013 National Merit® Scholarship Program

[Howard Hartman]

Semifinalists Named in the 2013 National Merit® Scholarship Program

160 Semifinalists in Public and Private Schools

List of seminfinalists

Public Schools: Albert Einstein, Bethesda-Chevy Chase, Damascus, Montgomery Blair, Northwest, Poolesville, Richard Montgomery, Sherwood, 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, Our Lady of Good Council, Stone Ridge School of the Sacred Heart

(Evanston, Illinois) Today officials of National Merit Scholarship Corporation (NMSC) announced the names of approximately 16,000 Semifinalists in the 58th 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 $32 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 2013 Competition

About 1.5 million juniors in more than 22,000 high schools entered the 2013 National Merit Scholarship Program by taking the 2011 Preliminary sat/National Merit Scholarship Qualifying Test (PSAT/NMSQT®), which served as an initial screen of program entrants. The nationwide pool of Semifinalists, representing less than one percent of U.S. high school seniors, includes the highestscoring 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, the Semifinalist and their 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, 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 2013. 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 2013 will be announced in four nationwide news releases beginning in April and concluding in July. These scholarship recipients will join more than 291,000 other distinguished young people who have earned the Merit Scholar title.

2013 National Merit Scholarship Program Semifinalists

Public Schools

Albert Einstein

McMurry, Julia


Bethesda-Chevy Chase

Berez, Alyssa	Deng, Junwen
Giddings, Catherine	Hesslink, David	Sacks, Raphael
Socolof, Michaela

Damascus

Rietcheck, Hope


Montgomery Blair

Albalghiti, Eva	Benyamin, Marcus	Cai, William
Chen, Daniel	Chen, Sharon	Chen, Vivienne
Cody, Samantha	Dunn, Annie	Durvasula, Samir
Foster, Jack	Friend, Isaac	Gaddy, Thomas
Gubin, Tatyana	He, Rebecca	Hyun, Jason
Ilangovan, Diwakaran	Kahn, Evan	King, Milo
Lathrop, Emily	Liang, Tony	Liu, Daniel
Liu, Elizabeth	Loomis, Thomas	Lott, Adam
Maguire, Sean	Pasternak, Charles	Qiao, Eric
Raichura, Janvi	Ruan, Lisha	Shi, Audre
Skarda, Jinhie	Tai, Kuangyu	Taylor, Langston
Teixeira, Ian	Wagner, Myles	Wilson, Sarah
Zbarsky, Samuel

Northwest

Wang, Brent


Poolesville

Berlin, Deborah	Chamberlain, Meghan	Chu, Anyuan
Gherman, Matthew	Patel, Anand	Whitney-Blum, Bryn
Zeng, Joy

Richard Montgomery

Benjamin, Matthew	Berkowitz, Dalia	Deutsch, Samuel
Devaraj, Srihari	Febrey, Allison	Haft, Lara
Hong, Sun Min	Hsu, Ariel	Hu, Sofia
Jiang, Emily	Lam, Fiona	Lang, Alan
Liang, Amy	Marx, Jonathan	McCurry, Joshua
Morse, Marni	Odessey, Rachel	Pai, Taiyuan
Sarkar, Ankit	Saunders, Errin	Srinivasan, Arvind
Szwerc, Matthew	Wu, Joseph	Yan, Megan
Yu, Kathleen	Zhang, David

Sherwood

Reed, Emily          Schroeder, Leah


Thomas S. Wootton

Dadi, Amal	Feng, Austin	Ghosh, Souvik
He, Michelle	Hwang, Christina	Li, Chong
Li, Sophie	Lu, Kathleen	Lu, Yanhong
Lwin, Cara	McGrattan, Susan	Qi, Yini
Shiau, Heidi	Yi, Eric

Walt Whitman

Arnesen, Rachel	Bjornlund, Marit	Bouvier, Benjamin
Brand, Ryan	Butman, Jana	Caldera, Allegra
Carrington, Madeline	Chadwick, Sara	Chang, Xian
Elmendorf, Laura	Foreman, Alison	Goldman, David
Isaacs, Michelle	Karron, Lucas	Knox, William
Kochar, Pia	Lee, Hanna	Pearl-Schwartz, Samuel
Rogers, Emily	Rosenblum, Jacob	Shapiro, Brandon
Smith, Rhiannon	Todd, Sofia	Williams, John
You, Kevin

Walter Johnson

Chen, Jennifer	Fitzpatrick, James	Habermeier, Clara
Li, Xinyi	Park, Zoe	Stryer, Rachael

Winston Churchill

Conway, Catherine	Gauch, Christopher	Haskins, Andrew
Kincaid, Colin	Lee, Jessica	Li, Felix
Markovych, Nikita	Shekar, Neil	Tobin, Maeve
Wang, Sara	Weiss, Alyssal

Private Schools

Charles E. Smith Jewish Day School

Birnbaum, Abigail	Cohen, Hayley	Cohen, Reuben
Dorn, Jacob

Georgetown Preparatory School

Lee, Alexander          Rezende, Justin          Roche, Michael


Heights School

Krohn, David

Holton Arms School

Berthiaume, Alexandra	Brew, Grace	Kirk, Katherine
Peiperl, Julia

Landon School

Balendran, Vinodh	Jundanian, Jack	Moseley, Luc
Voslow, Harrison

Melvin J. Berman Hebrew Academy

Fink, Isaacl	Kosowsky, Andrew	Mark, Shmuale
Schwartz, Arianne

Our Lady of Good Council

Coursey, Erin          Speizman, Sydney


Stone Ridge School of the Sacred Heart

Engler, Madeleine

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.