15 Half Hollow Hills Students Named National Merit Semifinalists

Fifteen Half Hollow Hills seniors are among 16,000 students across the country who have been named semifinalists in the 62nd annual National Merit Scholarship Program.

Ten Half Hollow Hills High School East students and five Half Hollow Hills High School West students received this honor.

The National Merit Scholarship Corporation made the announcement on Wednesday.

Congrats to the semifinalists:

Half Hollow Hills High School East

• Gary Armyn
• Jesse M. Blatt
• Jessica N. DeVilla
• Vishal Nyayapathi
• Vaidehi Patel
• Shiv Patil
• Paul Rhee
• Alia F. Rizvon
• Rachel M. Rosenstein
• Kiran Shetty

Half Hollow Hills High School West

• Alexis Bainnson
• Isabella M. DeCarlo
• Matilda Ho
• Daniel D. Kim
• Yun Jin Woo

These high school seniors will move on through the competition to possibly earn 7,500 National Merit Scholarships worth about $33 million that will be handed out next spring.

To be considered for a Merit Scholarship award, semifinalists must fulfill several requirements to advance to the finalist level of the competition.

About 1.6 million juniors in more than 22,000 high schools entered the 2017 National Merit Scholarship Program and were screened based on their 2015 Preliminary SAT/National Merit Scholarship Qualifying Test scores.

These semifinalists represent less than one percent of U.S. high school seniors. About 15,000 semifinalists are expected to advance to the finalist level. Merit Scholars will be announced in February.

File photo