PLEASANT HILL, Calif.--Contra Costa County Superintendent of Schools Lynn Mackey congratulates 114 high school seniors for being named Semifinalists in the 69th annual National Merit Scholarship Program.
Led by 52 students at Dougherty Valley High School in the San Ramon Valley Unified School District, there are 13 Contra Costa County high schools represented on the list of more than 16,000 Semifinalists.
“Being named a National Merit Scholarship Semifinalist is an accomplishment for these students and their families,” Contra Costa County Superintendent of Schools Lynn Mackey said. “This recognition is the result of a commitment to academic excellence from the students, their families and school communities. I want to thank the teachers and school employees for supporting these scholars and wish the students good luck as they compete for National Merit scholarships.”
Schools with Semifinalists include Dougherty Valley (52), Monte Vista (15), California (8), Campolindo (11), and Miramonte (10) high schools. Athenian, Acalanes, and Los Lomas high schools, each had three Semifinalists. Bentley, Northgate, and San Ramon Valley high schools each had two Semifinalists. El Cerrito and College Park high schools each had one Semifinalist. Additionally, one Semifinalist from Danville is listed as a homeschool student.
These high school seniors have an opportunity to continue in the competition for some 7,140 National Merit Scholarships worth nearly $28 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 95 percent of the Semifinalists are expected to attain Finalist standing, and approximately half of the Finalists will win a National Merit Scholarship, earning the Merit Scholar title.
Over 1.3 million juniors in 21,000 high schools entered the 2024 National Merit Scholarship Program by taking the 2022 Preliminary SAT/National Merit Scholarship Qualifying Test (PSAT/NMSQT®), which served as an initial screen of program entrants. The nationwide group of Semifinalists represents less than one percent of U.S. high school seniors and includes the highest-scoring entrants in each state. National Merit Scholarship winners of 2024 will be announced in four nationwide news releases beginning in April and concluding in July. More information about the National Merit Scholarship program can be found online at https://www.nationalmerit.org/.
CONTRA COSTA COUNTY NATIONAL MERIT SCHOLARSHIP SEMIFINALISTS
ACALANES HIGH SCHOOL - 3
Brekke, Benjamin A.
Brinkman, Alana A.
DiPrisco, Aidan J.
ATHENIAN SCHOOL – 3
Aggarwal, Aarav
Jarvis, Zachary J.
Riebli, Ella H.
BENTLEY SCHOOL - 2
Gutwill, Jonah W.
Luo, Jason
CALIFORNIA HIGH SCHOOL -12
Gadad, Sara
Ma, Andrew
Manjunath, Aarav
Milasincic, Jax C.
Salem Sathish, Shravya
Wang, Ada
Wang, Arthur
Wang, Brian
CAMPOLINDO HIGH SCHOOL -11
Castilla-Liu, Marina E.
Damiano, Nina
Dolge, Nicolo B.
Hardy, Elizabeth C.
Heidersbach, Henry S.
Lan, Michael
Seo, Christopher
Srivastava, Naina
Tringe, Laurel K.
Wang, Yu Xin
Young, Benjamin D.
COLLEGE PARK –1
Celestre, Griffin R.
DOUGHERTY VALLEY HIGH SCHOOL -52
Babarjung, Prerita
Bora, Anushka
Caglar, Dilara
Chander, Siddharth
Chun, Kyle
Das, Anaisha
Dong, Luciana
Duan, Mackenzie
Duvvuri, Ashish
Gao, Shaun
Gaonkar, Nidhi
Ghai, Aadi
Goyal, Avani
Grewal, Shirin Kaur K.
Harinath, Dhruv
He, Wesley
Ilavajuthy, Aditi
Kapur, Abigail
Kolluru, Vaishnavi
Kondapalli, Neel
Koneti, Swadhistha
Kulkarni, Kushal
Kwek, Eugene
Kwek, Marcus
Lai, Kylie
Lau, Anna
Lee, Owen
Li, Michelle
Lin, Joyce
Liu, Danny
Maroo, Ansh
Matharasi, Taneesh V.
Mundlapudi, Sanjna
Pamula, Ashray
Park, John
Park, Taejun
Peng, Elaine
Pinnamaneni, Ananya
Pressman, Isaac
Rao, Tanvi
Reddy, Rohan
Saini, Shruti
Shanker, Anand
Singh, Gia
Taneja, Anushka
Wadhwa, Arav
Wang, Jerry
Wong, Koji
Wu, Evelyn
Yan, Neal Y.
Yang, Dennis J.
Yu, Andrew
EL CERRITO –1
Sun, Christopher
HOMESCHOOL - 1
Klieger, Benjamin G., Danville
LOS LOMAS HIGH SCHOOL -3
Kim, Ethan M.
Park, Andrew J.
Thirumaligai, Srihari A.
MIRAMONTE HIGH SCHOOL -10
Battersby, Alexander
Berg, Cameron C.
Cao, Antong
Guo, Nicole Y.
Inesi, Ardal J.
Lee, Olivia Y.
Maboudian, Leila M.
Sandhu, Ravi W.
Scheiner, Casey J.
Vo, Vajra T.
MONTE VISTA HIGH SCHOOL -15
Chan, Anthony
Chen, Ethan
Chen, Owen
Fang, Alan
Gulcu, Ethem
Huang, Aidan N.
Jiang, Alice
Kalin, Emily M.
Lu, Jonathan M.
Patnaik, Vivaan
Pleat, Elkan
Ramesh, Adithya
Tan, Sheldon U.
Yang, Carolyn
Yang, Hannah
NORTHGATE -2
Abedin, Akash R.
Carcamo, Sophia R.
SAN RAMON VALLEY HIGH SCHOOL -2
Montana, Canyon
Wu, Youwen