12 West Chester Area SD Students Named National Merit Semifinalists

WEST CHESTER, PA — Twelve West Chester students have been named semifinalists in the 2018 National Merit Scholarship Program.

Judy Jan and Ramya Muthukrishnan from Henderson; Leah Beveridge, Grace Bitner, Minh-Tuan Le, Kaitlyn Maniscalco, Katherine O'Malley, and Emily Yu from Bayard Rustin; and Ryan Brunner, Daniel Coyle, Jerry Lan, and Mark Neskovic from East will all represent the school district as semifinalists.

About 1.6 million juniors in more than 22,000 high schools entered the 2018 National Merit Scholarship Program by taking the 2016 PSAT.

“I am quite proud of these three students. To be recognized by the National Merit Scholarship Program is a great honor that demonstrates dedication to their academic success,” Spring-Ford Area High School Principal Patrick Nugent said in a statement. “I’m also proud of our teachers, as they have assisted in John, Nicholas', and Yash’s academic accomplishments.”

All semifinalists are eligible to receive 7,500 National Merit Scholarships worth $33 million.

The nationwide pool of semifinalists represents less than one percent of high school seniors.

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.

From the approximately 16,000 semifinalists, about 15,000 are expected to be named finalists. Three types of scholarship awards will be offered next year: National Merit $2,500 scholarships, corporate-sponsored scholarships, and college-sponsored scholarships.

Scholarship winners will be announced in spring 2018.

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