In early September, an email notified 30 seniors that they had qualified to be National Merit Scholarship semifinalists based on their high scores on the PSAT in fall 2023.
Only test-takers in the 99th percentile in their respective states qualify for semifinalist status. For the Class of ‘25 in California, this was an index of 221 — or a score of 1,480 out of a possible 1,520. Among the Class of ‘25, 178 students took the test last year, with an average score of 1,355, compared to the national average of 920.
The 30 National Merit Semifinalists are Katherine Berger, Akshat Bora, Rebecca Bossow, Aiden M. Chen, Richard Chung, Arshia Desarkar, Hayden Fu, Kirby Fung, Sarah Gechlik, Leonardo Jia, Nicole Lee, Timothy Leung, Sydney Li, Grace Liu, Alan Lu, Skyler Mao, Ruhan Periyacheri, Saira Ramakrishnan, Tarun Ramakrishnan, Daniel Schwartz, Tanuj Siripurapu, Angela Tan, Alexander Vash-Munoz, Andrae Wan, Brandon Wang, Timothy Wei, Sora Wongsonegoro, Luke Zhang, Jeremy Zhou and Julius Zhou.
The next step for these students is to complete their application for the $2,500 National Merit Scholarship, after the school sends letters of recommendation. Guidance counselor Brian Safine is confident that almost all the semifinalists will receive the scholarship.
“Typically, in schools our size, there are only two or three Semifinalists, but we have nine or ten times that number,” Safine said. “Most who visit our school or see data in different forms of media are shocked that we have that many.”