11 Half Hollow Hills Students Named 2023 National Merit Semifinalists

The Half Hollow Hills Central School District of Huntington and Babylon is proud to announce that 8 students from High School East and 3 students from High School West are Semifinalists in the 68th annual National Merit Scholarship Program. These 11 academically talented students join the approximately 16,000 Semifinalists nationwide who have an opportunity to continue in the competition for some 7,250 National Merit Scholarships worth nearly $28 million that will be offered next spring.

The students who earned this prestigious honor from Half Hollow Hills are High School West’s Mariam Hassan, Alex Huang and James Parada, and High School East’s Colin Campbell, Peter Chung, Vanessa Hsieh, Daniel Kogan, Jacob Leshnower, Ryan Rudes, Mark Shapiro and Alice Wang.

“Our entire educational community joins in congratulating our 11 Semifinalists in the 2023 National Merit Scholarship Program,” said Dr. Patrick Harrigan, the Half Hollow Hills Superintendent of Schools. “These Semifinalists represent the qualities we look to instill in our students and the culture of excellence and equity that we aim to create in our district.”

High school juniors entered the 2023 National Merit Scholarship Program by taking the 2021 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.

To be considered for a Merit Scholarship® award, 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 approximately half of the Finalists will win a National Merit Scholarship, earning the Merit Scholar® title.

National Merit Scholarship winners of 2023 will be announced in four nationwide news releases beginning in April and concluding in July. These scholarship recipients will join nearly 368,000 other distinguished young people who have earned the Merit Scholar title.

An education-oriented community with high academic expectations, the Half Hollow Hills Central School District is located in a residential area of 50,000 people in the central part of Long Island, approximately 40 miles from New York City. Providing for the education of approximately 7,500 students, the school district has five elementary schools, two middle schools and two high schools. Half Hollow Hills High Schools are fully accredited by the New York State Department of Education. The district is committed to providing all students with equitable opportunities to excel in academics, athletics and the arts.