Several Northern Nevada high school students have been named semifinalists in the 2019 National Merit Scholarship Program and are among approximately 16,000 scholars nationwide.
Each will continue in the competition for more than $31 million in college scholarships to be awarded next spring. The nationwide pool of semifinalists represents less than one percent of high school seniors in the United States.
These students were among more than 1.6 million in about 22,000 high schools nationwide who entered the National Merit Scholarship Program as juniors last school year by taking the Preliminary SAT/National Merit Scholarship Qualifying Test, which served as an initial screening of program entrants.
To become a finalist and move forward in the scholarship competition, semifinalists must submit a detailed scholarship application with information about their academic record, participation in school and community activities, demonstrated leadership abilities, employment, and honors and awards received. Each also must have an outstanding academic record throughout high school, be endorsed and recommended by a school official, write an essay, and earn SAT scores that confirm the student’s earlier performance on the qualifying test.
The names of students and their schools are listed in alphabetical order.
- Carson High School: Evan Cherpeski, Brianna Mooney-Bennett, Megan Owens and Emma Rosen
- Davidson Academy: Alexander Alvarado, Nathan Bergin, Yatin Chandar, Jenny Jiang, Katherine Leary, Matthew Lynch, Nathan McAlister, Nikesh Mishra, Rhiannon Moore, Julia Nai, Anastasia Porter, Mikaela Prestowitz, Justin Thein, Scott Wade, James Warmke, Vivek Yanamadula
- Douglas High School: Justin Lu
- Galena High School: Theodore Bloch, Nicola Choma, Katherine Drinkwater and Alexander Mayer
- Incline High School: Matthew Cornell and Paul Larson
- Manogue High School: Jayson Viles
- McQueen High School: Jacob Freed
- Reed High School: Kenneth Piccirelli Platt
- Reno High School: Yun Seung Kim, Chloe Kinerson and Daniel Sorensen
