Los Gatos High School (LGHS) and Saratoga High School (SHS) honored their 2024 National Merit Scholarship Semifinalists this fall after the names of more than 16,000 Semifinalists were publicly announced as part of the 69th annual National Merit Scholarship Program.
The Los Gatos-Saratoga Union High School District has 48 students who qualified for this honor. These students now have an opportunity to continue in the competition for some 7,140 National Merit Scholarships worth nearly $28 million which will be offered next spring.
High school seniors entered the 2024 National Merit Scholarship Program by taking the Preliminary SAT/National Merit Scholarship Qualifying Test (PSAT/NMSQT) as juniors last school year. This test served as an initial screening of program entrants.
The qualifying semifinalists typically represent less than 1% of high school seniors in the state. For LGSUHSD, these students represent 5.7% of the graduating seniors.
Here are the local National Merit Scholarship Semifinalists: Advaith Avadhanam (SHS), Esha Bagora (LGHS), Sam Bai (SHS), Avik Belenje (SHS), Lynn Dai (SHS), Yichen Dai (LGHS), Sophia Deng (SHS), Tanya Goel (LGHS), Sanjoli Gupta (SHS), Dana Hathaway (LGHS), Yanis Herne (SHS), Katherine Herron (LGHS), Victoria Hu (SHS), Emily Hung (SHS), Madeline Hung (SHS), Nitya Jhamb (LGHS), Yashom Kapoor (SHS), Zeyneb Kaya (SHS), Dev Krishnamoorthy (SHS), Shayla Kumaresan (LGHS), Katelyn Lee (SHS), Bryan Li (SHS), Xiaoran (Grace) Li (SHS), Andrew Lin (SHS), Alyssa Liu (SHS), Claire Liu (LGHS), Jonny Luo (SHS), Nikhil Mathihalli (SHS), Eric Miao (SHS), Uttara Natarajan (SHS), Elisa Pan (LGHS), Samik Pattanayak (SHS), Dhilon Prasad (SHS), Dhrithi Rachepalli (SHS), Yonatan Ramon (LGHS), Ashir Rao (LGHS), Rithi Rao (LGHS), Benjamin Robison (LGHS), Rushil Saraf (SHS), Jarrett Singh (SHS), Elizabeth Snyder (LGHS), Anais Sobrier (SHS), Shaolun Sun (SHS), Gavin Tamasi (LGHS), Nidhi Vadlamudi (SHS), Joseph Wang (SHS), Aiden Ye (SHS) and Matthew Zhang (SHS).
Semifinalists have the opportunity to advance to the Finalist level by submitting a detailed scholarship application, in which they provide information about the their academic record, participation in school and community activities, demonstrated leadership abilities, employment, and honors and awards received.
A semifinalist must have an outstanding academic record throughout high school, write an essay, earn SAT or ACT scores that confirm the student’s earlier performance on the qualifying test, and be endorsed and recommended by a high school teacher or administrator.
