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September 15, 2016
Sixteen District 196 high school seniors have been named semifinalists in the 2017 National Merit Scholarship Program and another 31 seniors are being recognized as National Merit commended students based on tests they took last year. The names of the merit semifinalists and commended students in this 62nd annual scholarship program were released Sept. 14 by the National Merit Scholarship Corporation.
The 16 National Merit semifinalists from District 196 are:
• Elizabeth Bartlett, Arunima Bhattacharya, Bryce Collison, Jonathan David, Lauren Kalina, Lauren Markowski, Benjamin Pankow, Raj Purohit, Rylee Smith and Rosella Stower of Eagan High School;
• Ryan Chen and Athena Hatfield of Eastview High School, and
• Isabel Edgar, Trevor Liggett and Dominic Voto of Rosemount High School.
Students are selected as semifinalists based on their scores on the Preliminary Scholastic Aptitude Test/National Merit Scholarship Qualifying Test (PSAT/NMSQT), which they take as juniors. Semifinalists rank in the top 1 percent of the approximately 1.6 million high school juniors who took the test last year in the United States. The semifinalists may submit additional information to be considered for selection as a finalist. Students named National Merit finalists will compete for more than 7,500 scholarships totaling $33 million that will be awarded next spring by businesses, colleges and universities, and the National Merit Scholarship Corporation.
In addition to semifinalists, the National Merit program also recognizes students whose scores on the PSAT/NMSQT rank them in the top 5 percent of students nationwide. In District 196, the following 31 seniors are 2017 National Merit commended students:
• Patrick Acton, Alexander Beaudin, Trevor Burgoyne, Patrick Collins, Kirsten Elliott, Paul Filonowich, Benjamin Flanagan, Alyssa Jolliffe, Alexa Koch, Jackson Lee, Andrew Marell, Jacob Mox, Dylan Schuller and Zhen Tu of Eagan High;
• Nansea Ji, Pranav Julakanti, Osman Mansur, Sean Mather, Nicole McMahon, Jenna Smith and Jeffrey Zhu of Eastview High;
• Hannah Betters, Evelyn Doran, David Lencioni, Laura Rietveld, Michael Somsky and Alexander Zhu of Rosemount High, and
• Hanalei Lewine of the School of Environmental Studies.
