More than three dozen Tucson-area high school seniors have been named National Merit Scholarship semifinalists.
They are among 16,000 semifinalists named across the country, 90 percent of whom are expected to attain finalist standing. About half of the finalists will win scholarships, earning the merit scholar title.
The local semifinalists are:
- Jonah Harwood, Anna Kylat, Carley Noll and Julia Wieland of Basis Oro Valley.
- Chloe Penna of Canyon del Oro High School.
- Kaushal Bhat, Laurel Humphreys, Thomas Murickan, Corazon Nunez, Tripp Rosenfelt, Ryan Walk and Saba Zerefa of Basis Tucson North.
- Miriam Arden, Zoe Benson, Katherine Carr, Will Glaesser, John Konrad and Zachary Schlamowitz of Catalina Foothills High School.
- Katherine Webster, home- schooled.
- Bethany Harrison of Ironwood Ridge High School.
- Aidan Kehl of Pusch Ridge Christian Academy.
- Finlay Parsons, Maxwell Thum and Joseph Zelinka of Sonoran Science Academy.
- Shayna Maddern of Tanque Verde High School.
- Denham Carlisle, Ashley Chen, Madeleine King, Walker Kroubalkian, Sarah McDuffie, Calista Olander, Rhys Plassmann, Nicholas Quatraro, Genevieve Simpson, Angela Sun, Talia Tax, Amber Velez and Madeleine Zheng of University High School.
- David Palmer of Cienega High School.
Students entered the 2019 National Merit Scholarship Program by taking the 2017 Preliminary SAT, which served as an initial screener. The semifinalists are considered among the highest scoring entrants in each state.
To become a finalist, semifinalistsโ academic record is considered, as are school and community activities, leadership abilities, employment and honors. They also must be recommended by a high school official, write an essay and earn SAT scores confirming the earlier performance.
