170 Fremont Students Named 2023 Nat'l Merit Scholarship Semifinalists

FREMONT, CA — The National Merit Scholarship Corporation announced the names of over 16,000 semifinalists in the 68th annual National Merit Scholarship Program, including 170 students in Fremont. Less than one percent of U.S. high school seniors are chosen as semifinalists in the prestigious competition.

“I send my congratulations to each student named as a semifinalist. The consistently high number of FUSD students recognized as National Merit Scholarship semifinalists is a testament to the excellence of our students and educators, and the dedication of our students and families to their educational success,” said Fremont Unified School District Superintendent CJ Cammack.

The students are competing for 7,250 scholarships worth nearly $28 million that will be awarded in multiple rounds next spring and summer.

These 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 about half of them will win a National Merit Scholarship.

The next step for the semifinalists and their schools is to submit a detailed scholarship application with academic record, participation in school and community activities, demonstrated leadership abilities, employment, and honors and awards received. The student must also earn SAT or ACT scores that confirm the student’s earlier performance on the qualifying test.

The scholarships are underwritten by National Merit's own funds and by approximately 340 business organizations, colleges and universities.

Semifinalists entered the competition as juniors by taking the 2021 Preliminary SAT/National Merit Scholarship Qualifying Test, which served as an initial screen of entrants. The number of semifinalists in each state is proportional to the state’s percentage of the national total of graduating seniors.

Finalists will be notified in February.

Here is a list of Fremont's semifinalists, listed by school:

American High School

1. Agarwal, Preisha
2. Ashok, Riya
3. Bhuwania, Urvi
4. Chang, Phoebe W.
5. Chen, Tiffany Y.
6. Gaddam, Arnav R.
7. Gaonkar, Saarth
8. Garg, Shreeya
9. Gaur, Agastya
10. Gokhale, Reva
11. Gupta, Aditya
12. Hariharan, Ashwin M.
13. Jodhavat, Chaitya H.
14. Kar, Adrish
15. Kataria, Aditya S.
16. Kedia, Bhuvi
17. Korimilli, Manas G.
18. Kumar, Aditya S.
19. Lin, Hung
20. Liu, Gregory
21. Lu, James Y.
22. Mallya, Adarsh
23. Mathew, Meryl
24. Parikh, Krish
25. Putta, Pranav R.
26. Raman, Thoya
27. Ramoshan, Rishathvik
28. Ravi, Abinaya
29. Saki, Aarav L.
30. Sreerama, Alekhya
31. Sun, Avery
32. Thomas, Nevin J.
33. Tu, Zhaorong
34. Upadhyay, Garima
35. Venkitesh, Nandana V.
36. Wang, Carol
37. Wang, Woyu
38. Yedur, Samvar M.
39. Yelluru, Varun S.
40. Yu, Raymond
41. Zhu, David Y.

Fremont Christian High School

1. Wang, Justin Y.

Irvington High School

1. Balaji, Vikram
2. Bhartia, Pranjal
3. Bhat, Alisha
4. Dai, Ryan F.
5. Dornala, Srideep
6. Feng, Lisa C.
7. Ganesan, Arjun
8. Gupta, Dhruv
9. Harpalani, Abhay
10. Hsu, Isabelle
11. Jiang, Yue
12. Law, Louis
13. Lin, Sean S.
14. Liu, Mandy
15. Ma, Samuel K.
16. Mistry, Eshaan
17. Morgaonkar, Aarya P.
18. Nguyen, Vivian P.
19. Patel, Ayush A.
20. Patwardhan, Saaniya N.
21. Quan, Angela Y.
22. Renjith, Gauri
23. Sathish, Tanish
24. Shukla, Suhani
25. Shyam Sundar, Ambareesh
26. Song, Selina E.
27. Sun, Hanqing
28. Wang, Daniel X.
29. Wang, Vincent X.
30. Xiao, Kaiwen
31. Yuan, Helen
32. Zang, Jeffery
33. Zhu, Sophia

John F. Kennedy High School

1. Hussain, Ismail
2. Jain, Dravya
3. Jay, Nathan
4. Kavasseri, Raja K.
5. Kondapally, Taneesh
6. Li, Calvin J.

Mission San Jose High School

1. Agarwal, Arushi G.
2. Arora, Arnav
3. Bathina, Harshita
4. Bhagat, Rohan V.
5. Bhashyakarla, Pratham
6. Bhat, Krisha
7. Brown, Kyle M.
8. Cheetancheri, Siddharthasai S.
9. Chhabria, Tanya S.
10. Dai, Max
11. Diao, Joshua
12. Duo, Garret
13. Fernando, Shelley
14. Ge, Chris
15. Gong, Daniel
16. Grover, Samrit S.
17. Gu, Alton C.
18. Guan, Lingke
19. Gune, Saloni P.
20. Gupta, Chahak
21. He, Alexander
22. Ho, Stanley
23. Huang, Christy C.
24. Iyer, Akash S.
25. Jiang, Leo
26. Kao, Adrian M.
27. Kashyap, Ayushi
28. Kilam, Yash
29. Krishna, Pareekshith H.
30. Kuchibhotla, Sahana
31. Lau, Mei
32. Li, Chengqi
33. Li, Shelley
34. Liang, Andrew J.
35. Lin, Youda
36. Liu, Ryan
37. Loh, Brian
38. Luo, Amy
39. Ma, Ryan
40. Marcelis, Julia A.
41. Meyyappan, Prem M.
42. Mishra, Smaran
43. Nainani, Govind
44. Nambiar, Nandana J.
45. Nandanwar, Saanvi R.
46. Polishchuk, Skyla L.
47. Prakash, Arunima
48. Qu, Benjamin Z.
49. Rajkumar, Prajit
50. Rangaraaj, Rahul
51. Ray, Rhea
52. Saini, Kaavya
53. Satish, Archana
54. Sharma, Akul
55. Sheng, Kevin
56. Shetty, Dev A.
57. Shukla, Uday
58. Singh, Nathan E.
59. Sou, Etta
60. Sreeram, Pranav
61. Su, William B.
62. Sun, Andrew
63. Tang, Selena
64. Tatavarthi, Sanjana
65. Teng, Eric S.
66. Wang, Allison H.
67. Wang, Audrey
68. Wang, Michael Z.
69. Wang, Zhuoqin
70. Wu, Julie
71. Xiong, Bryan
72. Yan, Brandon V.
73. Yang, Marco J.
74. Yuan, Jerry
75. Zhang, Adrian
76. Zhang, Jasper B.
77. Zhang, Maggie
78. Zhao, Max W.
79. Zhou, Michael
80. Zhou, Patrick
81. Zhou, Samuel

Washington High School

1. Bianco, Nadia
2. Devadhar, Chinmay
3. Doan, Khang Q.
4. Gopisetty, Aakarsh
5. He, Diana
6. Jain, Rhea
7. Jay, Shree
8. Xie, Katherine G.

In 2022, 47 Fremont Unified School District seniors were named National Merit Scholars.