National Merit Scholar Semifinalists Announced – Upper Dublin and Wissahickon High School Students Included in Impressive List

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All Around | Contests , Education

September 18th, 2018 | By Deana Clement

Last week officials of National Merit Scholarship Corporation (NMSC) announced the names of approximately 16,000 Semifinalists in the 64th annual National Merit Scholarship Program. Both Upper Dublin and Wissahickon High School have students that are included in this impressive list.

These academically talented high school seniors have an opportunity to continue in the competition for some 7,500 National Merit Scholarships worth more than $31 million that will be offered next spring.

The Upper Dublin students who are semifinalists are:

  • Cal Allen
  • David Cai
  • Allison Chang
  • Aaron Dorsey
  • Robert Frazier
  • Michelle Furmansky
  • Benjamin Helzner
  • Belinda Jin
  • Rose Listman
  • Connie Liu
  • John Palmer
  • Mario Petushi
  • Amelia Shaddinger
  • Ardyn Solomon
  • Hannah Xiao
  • Judy Zhong

The Wissahickon students who are semifinalists are:

  • William Bishop
  • Kyla Frenia
  • Edwin Kuffner
  • Alex Wee
  • Caleb Zhang
  • Ryan Zhao

To be considered for a Merit Scholarship® award, Semifinalists must fulfill several requirements to advance to the Finalist level of the competition. Over 90 percent of the Semifinalists are expected to attain Finalist standing, and about half of the Finalists will win a National Merit Scholarship, earning the Merit Scholar® title.

Over 1.6 million juniors in about 22,000 high schools entered the 2019 National Merit Scholarship Program by taking the 2017 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 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.

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.

Winners will be announced between April-June of 2019.