Fulton Students Named 2018 National Merit Semifinalists

The Fulton County School System said 123 of its students have been named semifinalists in the 63rd annual National Merit Scholarship Program for 2018. These high school seniors will now continue in the national competition for more than 7,500 Merit Scholarship awards valued at about $32 million.

Announced by the National Merit Scholarship Corporation, this is the first round of competition for students seeking the distinction of being named a National Merit Scholar and receiving the scholarship money associated with it. Scholarship winners will be announced in the spring.

The students were identified through exceptionally high scores on the PSAT/National Merit Scholarship Qualifying Test, which they took as juniors. As semifinalists, the students now must fulfill several requirements in order to advance to the finalist round. They must have a record of high academic performance, be endorsed and recommended by their school leadership, and earn SAT scores that confirm their earlier qualifying test performance (SIGN UP: Get Patch's Daily Newsletter and Real Time News Alerts. Or, if you have an iPhone, download the free Patch app).

A detailed scholarship application, which includes the student’s self-descriptive essay and information about his or her participation and leadership in school and community activities, also must be submitted.

The National Merit Scholarship Corporation conducts the annual National Merit Scholarship and National Achievement Scholarship programs. Scholarships awarded through the programs are underwritten by business organizations and higher education institutions, as well as by the organization’s own funds.

Students named semifinalists are:

Alpharetta High School: Matthew Buxbaum, Vivian Cheng, Caleb Colburn, Anthony J. Elengickal, Julia Gu, Syed Haider, Benjamin A. Koehler, Maggie Lee, Sarah Medina, Aditya Mhaskar, Stephen Tong, Sraddha Valluru, Siddhartha Vemuri, Amanda Y. Wang, Evan Zhang and Jessica Zhang.

Cambridge High School: Michael Carrow, Jason E. Howard, Srijita Nandy, Michael Wallace and Carter Wood.

Centennial High School: Andrew Duffy, Chloe LeCates, Kayley A. Olewicz, Anise J. Overton and Emma Sweigart

Chattahoochee High School: Alexander Costa, Madhav Ghatpande, Kevin Huang, Neha Joshi, Alex Kim, Mary Lou, Apurva Nemala, Ryan Peng, Alice Qiao, Niranjan Ramasekaran, Supraja Sama, Akanksha Sharma, Emily Wang, Richard Xie and Jingyi Zhang.

Johns Creek High School: Yasmin Ajirniar, Fatih Altunbasak, Neharika Bhatia, Sabrina Elson, Suzanne Enos, Nathaniel Fulmer, Lauren Garrett, Jessica Hou, Janet Huang, Caroline Kwon, Hoo Eon Kye, Joanna Li, Eric Mei, Grace Rarer, Allison Rothrock, Chesson Sipling, Jessie Sui, Parth Thakkar, Saachi Wadhwani, Ethan Wang, Yi Qing Wang, Grace Wei, Ashley Wu and Stephanie Zhang.

Milton High School: Yorick Andeweg, Justin Chang, Samin Islam, Sunny Jin, Bryson Moore, Jean Moorman, Abhisri Ramesh and Emma Turner.

North Springs Charter High School: Claudia D. Chu, Jared Coffsky, Daniel Lopez and Eric Miller.

Northview High School: Alexander Ahn, Jennifer Ahn, Rupkatha Banerjee, Sneha Chauhan, Annie Chen, Christie Chow, Kyongyun Chung, Seungmin Chung, Mehal Churiwal, Rebecca Francis, Philip Hoffman, George Hu, Joshua Jeon, Rayen Kang, Shirin Kuppusamy, Seung Jun Lee, Young Eun Lee, Joshua Li, Richard Li, Helena Liao, Audrey C. Lu, Julia Lu, Daphne Manning, Vinay Mehta, Joseph H. Ni, Vamshi Pandiri, Jinseo Park, Aparna Pateria, Cahil Potnis, Vineet P. Reddy, Siddarth Seemakurti, Sarika Temme-Bapat, Anirudh Thatavarty, Arnold Wang, Nathaniel Yang, Horace Yao, Sandeep Yerraguntla and Susan Yi.

Riverwood International Charter School: Saya A. Abney and Lily Schneider.

Roswell High School: Ryan Eck, Joshua Herring, Cassandra Manrique, Rahil Patel and Joseph Ross.

Westlake High School: Denae Clowers.

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