A record number of National Merit semifinalists were named from the school this year. Thirty-nine seniors who scored 222 or above on the PSAT they took in the fall of their junior year qualified as semifinalists in the National Merit Competition.

The National Merit Competition selects the top 1 percent of PSAT scores nationwide, meaning that out of the over 1.5 million students who take the test each year, about 16,000 are named semifinalists.

According to assistant principal Brian Safine, the fact that the school had such a high number of semifinalists is quite an achievement.

“To have 39 students [from] a graduating class of 360, 365, means we’re 11 times what a school would expect to have, so it’s a remarkable number,” Safine said.

The number of semifinalists has been in the 30s in the past few years, with 38 in 2011, 36 in 2012 and 32 in 2013. According to Safine, this year’s number reflects dedication on the parts of both students and adults.

“The number itself, without context, doesn’t mean a lot; it’s just based on one three-hour test that our seniors took almost a year ago,” Safine said. “But the fact that so many students achieve a number that’s nationally recognized is indicative of the hard work our students do, the hard work our staff does, the support parents provide.”

To become National Merit finalists, the semifinalists must meet academic standards, submit an application and take the SAT. Safine said that 90 percent of semifinalists typically advance to this stage.

Safine added that the number of National Merit semifinalists this year is only another indication of the school’s academic excellence.

“I don’t think it’s a secret that Saratoga High is a great place to learn and has many motivated students,” Safine said. “The National Merit number, I think, is just one of many data points that supports the notion that people are pretty motivated around here.”

 

National Merit Semifinalists: Aditya Aggarwal, Anshul Aggarwal, Jacqueline An, Neel Bedekar, Sachin Bettadapur, Meghna Chakraborty, Maximilian Chang, Andrew Chen, Sabrina Chen, James Cheng, Landon Chow, Caitriona Costello, Cian Costello, Jasmine Deng, Eric Duong, Agastya Gupta, Julie Han, Caleb Ho, Megana Iyer, Deepti Kannan, Jeongwan Lee, Amy Lin, Andrew Low, Alexander Martinez-Hansen, Sonal Pai, Boyu Pang, Stephen Peng, Mukund Prabakar, Samir Ramakrishnan, Rohit Rao, Preethi Ravi, Maya Ravichandran, Vivian Roan, Steven Sum, Carolyn Sun, Indraneel Tambe, Shivaram Yellamilli, Kimberly Zai, Devin Zhao