Forty-one Chapel Hill-Carrboro City Schools students were named semifinalists in the 56th annual National Merit Scholarship Program, while three district students were named semifinalists in the National Achievement Scholarship Program.
The National Merit semifinalists will continue on to compete for 8,400 National Merit Scholarships worth more than $36 million. The National Merit Scholarship Corporation was established in 1955.Students enter its annual scholarship program by taking the Preliminary SAT/National Merit Scholarship Qualifying Test (PSAT/NMSQT). Semifinalists represent less than 1 percent of U.S. high school seniors.
Semifinalists from Carrboro High School are: Genevieve Ambrose, Abigail Dennison, Neel Patel, Melina Smith, Louis Vaught, Isaac Warshauer and Lilly Yuan.
Semifinalists from Chapel Hill High School are: Kayley Abell-Hart, Pravin Barton, Isaac Britt, Galen Burns-Fulkerson, Jane Chen, Kaela Cogswell, Morgan Grobin, Rachel Harrison, Paul Noah, Xinbai Pi, Xinzi Qi, Zachary Rubin, Elysia Su and Gray Symon.
Semifinalists from East Chapel Hill High School are: Susan Cavender, Supriya Davis, Katherine Fisher, Zoe Gan, Claire Gildard, Nina Henage, Young-Eun Hyun, Ben Krichman, Matthew Lee, Abigail Lin, Mengyun Lu, Christine Rheem, Alison Smith, Lauren Starnes, Rachel Thomas, Yvonne Tran, Olivia Veneziano, Kristina Vrouwenvelder, Zachary Wiener and Christopher Wolfe.
The National Achievement semifinalists are Chapel Hill High School seniors Helena Archer and Kyle Grant and East Chapel Hill High School senior Cedric Duquene.
More than 1,600 black high school seniors were named semifinalists in the 47th annual National Achievement Scholarship Program, which recognizes academically promising black students throughout the nation and provides $2.5 million in scholarships to the most outstanding program participants.
More than 160,000 high school juniors participated in the National Achievement Scholarship Program. — Staff Reports