Johns Creek Students Named National Merit Scholarship Semifinalists

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The Fulton County School System on Wednesday announced that 145 high school students are semifinalists in the 61st annual National Merit Scholarship Program.

These seniors now continue in the national competition for more than 7,400 Merit Scholarship awards, a value of approximately $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. Finalists will be named in the winter and the 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.

Fulton County students named semifinalists are:

• Alpharetta High School: Avni Ahuja, Rohan Bagga, Shubhom Bhattacharya, David Bumsted, Brian Cai, Kelly Carter, Justin Chu, Shelby Conway, Benjamin Dugger, Megan Evonsion, Harrison C. Feldman, James Fielding, Andrew Fu, Haiwen Gui, Michael Horton, Susan Lee, Sarah Li, Torus Lu, Aparna Maddala, Katharine Nelson, Richard Pei, Manu Poruthoor, Joel Pozin, Rahul Ramesh, Nishant Reddy, Joshua Seides, Christopher Sun, Alice Tang, Varun Tangirala, Charles Tantillo, Derek Wu and Wendy Zheng.
• Cambridge High School: Muhammad V. Arethusa, Parth T. Kumar, Nicolas Leis, Amy Li, Blake Quigley and Conor Wesolowski.
• Centennial High School: Justin K. Htay, Mary R. Stephens and Andrew T. Szidon.
• Chattahoochee High School: Galen Alderson, Sachit Anandan, Emily Bai, Jiayi Cheng, Siri Choragudi, Aditya Duddikunta, Ahana Gaurav, Kylie Gilde, JiaRu Huang, Tiffanie Leeman, Alexander Patton, Andrew Searles, Joseph G. Shin, Vunya Srinivasa, Jake Wong, Allison Wyman and Alice Zhou.
• Johns Creek High School: Kevin Buck, Rachel Chae, Yebin Chae, Catherine Chang, Charlotte Cuccia, Blake Deng, Mihir Dhoot, Yun Ke Du, Kevin Erb, Hersh Gupta, Lauren Ha, Tiffany Hsieh, Chris Kim, Su Hyun Lee, Jessica Li, Richard Li, Jingqiu Lin, Sherry Luo, Reagan A. Matthews, Kevin Meyers, Ahiliya Nat, George Pan, Sriram Pulavarty, Svetha Pulavarty, Rohan Rao, Derek Tang, Ray Xie and Lillie Zhou.
• Milton High School: Morgan Curtis, Harsh Jain, Rupal Khaitan, Agni Kumar, Samantha Lang, Pooja Mehta and Sanat Mohapatra.
• North Springs Charter High School: Luke Muehring, Abigail L. Szabo and Lillian D. Webster.
• Northview High School: Raahul A. Acharya, Sruthi Bayapureddy, Samuel Cai, Sophia Choi, Ankita Das, Meghna Dash, Maxwell Engle, Sweta Ghatti, Joshua J. Gundugollu, Shivani Guturu, Aaron Hui, Shannon Hwu, Keunho Kim, Woo Jae Kim, Hyunjae Lee, Kevin Li, Eric Lian, Youngjoon Lim, Alice Lin, Catherine Liu, Jasmine Liu, Bochen Ma, Jessica Ma, Joseph Pang, Mahima Pirani, Niketa Raj, Sanika Rane, Rishab Rao, Stuti Rao, Saloni Sharma, Kok Tan, Emma Tsaur, Connie Xiao, Lingyi Xin, Tiffany Xu, Iris Yao, Chris Yoon, Alan Zhang, Joanne Zheng, Karen Zheng, Kenny Zhou, Michael J. Zhou and Jennifer Zou.
• Riverwood International Charter School: David Goldfarb.
• Roswell High School: Tobie Chang, Kaitlin Dippolito, Matthew McKelvey and Sitara Shirol.
• Westlake High School: Anthony Hudson.

As semifinalists, these students must 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.

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.

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