Thirty-five New Trier High School students have been named as Semifinalists in the prestigious National Merit Scholarship Program.
High school juniors across the country entered the 2024 program by taking the 2022 Preliminary SAT/National Merit Scholarship Qualifying Test (PSAT/NMSQT), and only approximately 16,000 earned the Semifinalist designation. This nationwide pool of Semifinalists represents less than 1 percent of all U.S. high school seniors and includes the highest scoring entrants of the state, who will have the opportunity to continue in the competition for 7,140 National Merit Scholarships worth nearly $28 million.
To become a Finalist, a Semifinalist must have an outstanding academic record throughout high school, be endorsed and recommended by a high school official, and write an essay. The Semifinalist's participation in school and community activities, demonstrated leadership abilities, employment, and honors and awards received must also be submitted.
About 95 percent of Semifinalists are expected to advance to the Finalist level, and about half of those will win a National Merit Scholarship, earning the Merit Scholar title.
New Trier's 2024 National Merit Semifinalists are:
Alison K. Beanblossom, Tal M. Belkind, Jacqueline R. Berman, Emily J. Boyd, Tolga K. Bozkurt, William Choi, Maya Echambadi, Jasmine Fang, Hayden M. Fountain, Alivia A. Gao, Ashley Geohas, Constance H. Gillum, Samuel Kaiser, Sophia A. Korobov, Charles J. Ktsanes, Nalin V. Kundu, Magnus J. Lee, Megan K. Lu, Daniel C. Matten, Jacob A. Matten, Ella L. McCurdy, Andrew E. Moore, Cax H. Moore, Michael J. Moran, Lauren Moutvic, Niyati Naveen, Raina M. Patel, Sarah F. Popoff, Colleen S. Schindler, Rohan M. Sharma, Caleb Sim, Pranshu Venkatesh Rao, Victoria I. Wenzke, Andrew Y. Xia, and Jasper S. Zettelmeyer.
More information on the National Merit Scholarship Program is available through the National Merit Scholarship Corporation, www.nationalmerit.org.
