Forty-six seniors from high schools in the Cherry Creek School District have been selected as National Merit Scholarship Semifinalists in the 69th annual National Merit Scholarship Program. These academically talented students have an opportunity to continue in the competition for some 7,800 National Merit Scholarships worth nearly $35 million, which will be awarded next spring. The National Merit Scholarship Program honors individual students who show exceptional academic ability and potential for success in rigorous college studies.
More than 1.3 million students from across the country entered the 2024 National Merit Scholarship Program as high school juniors by taking the 2022 Preliminary SAT/National Merit Scholarship Qualifying Test (PSAT/NMSQT®), which serves as an initial screen of program entrants. From that pool, 16,000 semifinalists were selected. They represent less than one percent of U.S. high school seniors and include the highest-scoring entrants in each state.
Congratulations to these CCSD National Merit Scholarship Semifinalists:
Brynn Aarestad, OHS
Srinivas Arun, CCHS
Gautam M. Balakrishnan, CCHS
Caden M. Becker, CCHS
Sonja K. Bergstrom, CCHS
Neil Bhavikatti, CCHS
Rachel Carlsen, EHS
Amanda A. Castillo-Lopez, CCHS
Henry J. Cheung, CCHS
Julian Dobrski, GHS
Caitlin S. Dong, CCHS
Benjamin N. Fliegelman, CCHS
Ian F. Gair, CCHS
Hudson C. Garrigan, CCHS
Ryder M. Garrigan, CCHS
David Guy, CTHS
Hudson Harris, CCHS
Rithvik Ijju, CCHS
Kristen R. Konkoth, CCHS
Owen J. Lennon, CCHS
Robert B. Mackean, CCHS
Daniel G. Mathy, CCHS
Naren Musthuri, CTHS
Daria Osovskaya, CCHS
Carly M. Proestos, CCHS
Eleanor Ross, CCHS
Ekaterina V. Roudakov, CCHS
Eleanora S. Rowe, CCHS
Nicholas X. Rui, CCHS
Charles J. Schneider, CCHS
Griffin Shelton, CCHS
Aryamann Sheoran, CCHS
Toby L. Shu, CCHS
Henry Smith-Daigle, CTHS
Anna Tang, GHS
Ayan Vaishnav, CCHS
Jayden D. Wang, CCHS
Ryder C. Whipperman, CCHS
Noah Williams, GHS
William H. Xu, CCHS
Nathan Yang, CCHS
Gunjin Yi, CTHS
Joelle D. Yoon, CCHS
Josh J. Zhou, CCHS
Brandon Q. Zhu, CCHS
Mariami P. Zhuzhunashvili, CCHS
To become a Finalist, the Semifinalist and a high school official must submit a detailed scholarship application, in which they provide information about the Semifinalist’s academic record, participation in school and community activities, demonstrated leadership abilities, employment, and honors and awards received. 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® or ACT® scores that confirm the student’s earlier performance on the qualifying test.
The National Merit Scholarship winners will be announced between April and July of 2024. These scholarship recipients will join more than 300,000 other distinguished young people who have earned the Merit Scholar title.
Posted 9/15/2023.
