Schools

Many Philly Students Named National Merit Scholarship Semifinalists

Over 16,000 students have been named semifinalists in the 69th annual National Merit Scholarship Program. See local semifinalists here.

PHILADELPHIA — Semifinalists in the 69th annual National Merit Scholarship Program have been announced, and numerous Philadelphia students made the cut.

The semifinalists were announced Wednesday.

Among the more than 16,000 semifinalists are plenty from Philadelphia.

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Below are local students named semifinalists:

Central High School

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  • Amaris Chen
  • Gabriel Frishkoff
  • Thomas Monahon
  • Samantha Sandhaus
  • Jonathan Shao

Germantown Friends School

  • Calder E. Cook

Julia R. Masterman Laboratory and Demonstration School

  • Vir Acharya
  • Candelaria M. Beatty
  • Ella S. Berman
  • Joshua E. Cohen
  • Nicolas J. Dorazio
  • Brian Eng
  • Anya E. Finlay
  • Sivan N. Frankel
  • Larry Huang
  • Giselle Jap
  • Chris Ji
  • Tino G. Karakousis
  • Rosalie J. Kraines
  • Justin T. Liu

William Penn Charter School

  • James Langham
  • Alexandra Will

Springside Chestnut Hill Academy

  • Shaun Gupte

St. Joseph's Preparatory School

  • James M. Bidwell
  • Daniel J. Canney
  • Anthony D. Koh
  • John P. Lawler

These academically talented high school seniors have an opportunity to continue in the competition for some 7,140 National Merit Scholarships worth nearly $28 million that will be offered 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 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.

Over 1.3 million juniors in about 21,000 high schools entered the 2024 National Merit Scholarship Program by taking the 2022 Preliminary SAT/National Merit Scholarship Qualifying Test, 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.

National Merit Scholarship winners of 2024 will be announced in four nationwide news releases beginning in April and concluding in July.

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