18 Central Bucks Students Named National Merit Semifinalists

Eighteen students from the Central Bucks School District have been named as semifinalists in the National Merit Scholarship Program. The announcement was made Wednesday by the National Merit Scholarship Corporation.

The students who've been honored are:

CENTRAL BUCKS H. S. EAST

• Rachel K. Chen
• James S. Gillen
• Eli M. Kolodezh
• Nathan H. Mackouse
• Marcas R. Motter
• Amy Sun
• Deepti K. Tantry
• Timothy X. Wan
• Rachel S. Weinman
• Owen T. Zila

CENTRAL BUCKS H. S. WEST

• Holden A. Eriksson
• Lydia D. Hu
• Gianni A. Recupero
• Collin A. Schmidt

CENTRAL BUCKS H. S. SOUTH

• Connor C. Barnes
• Jennifer E. Bilker
• Sophia C.Wang
• Erica Werner

About 1.6 million juniors in more than 22,000 high schools entered the 2018 National Merit Scholarship Program by taking the 2016 PSAT. All semifinalists are eligible to receive 7,500 National Merit Scholarships worth $33 million.

To be honored, a semifinalist must have an outstanding academic record throughout high school, be endorsed and recommended by a high school official, write an essay and earn SAT scores that confirm their earlier performance on the PSAT, according to the information from the National Merit Scholarship Program.

Every finalist will compete for one of 2,500 National Merit $2,500 scholarships that will be awarded on a state-representational basis. About 1,000 corporate-sponsored Merit Scholarship awards will be provided by approximately 230 corporations and business organizations. Plus, there are about 190 colleges and universities expected to finance an estimated 4,000 college-sponsored Merit Scholarship awards for finalists who will attend the sponsor institution.

The nationwide pool of semifinalists represents less than 1 percent of high school seniors, according to information from the organization.

Awards will be announced in the spring of 2018.