These Orange County high schoolers are National Merit semifinalists for 2024 – Orange County Register

The National Merit Scholarship Program announced on Wednesday, Sept. 13, the semifinalists in Orange County for its prestigious annual competition.

Nationwide, 16,000 high school seniors were selected to move into the finals for the nearly $28 million the National Merit program will award in scholarships in the spring.

Next, the students will need to meet a number of requirements, including submitting a detailed application, writing an essay and showing an “outstanding academic record” and leadership and service in the community. The nonprofit said about 95% are expected to advance to being finalists, but only 7,140 scholarships will be given.

Being named a semifinalist puts these high schoolers in a pool of less than 1% of high school seniors in the United States, the nonprofit said in its announcement Wednesday. Scores on the 2022 Preliminary SAT/National Merit Scholarship Qualifying Test are used to determine the semifinalists.

The National Merit program is nearly 70 years old.

Here are the Orange County high school students named semifinalists according to Wednesday’s announcement:

ALISO NIGUEL HIGH

Chen, Jayme J.

Choe, Lea

Ghosh, Arnab

Lee, Cooper G.

Scherffius, Aidan J.

Yang, Artemis

BECKMAN HIGH

Chang, Brian J.

Chang, Devon Y.

Cheng, Ian

Chien, Stephen

Gurumoorthy, Amudhan S.

Kim, Joelle M.

Krishan, Vishaal J.

Nguyen-Khoa, Ethan

Osako, Sydney A.

Sehgal, Aayush

Tang, Adrienne A.

Tom, Lindsey M.

Vakil, Tashu T.

Yu, Ivan

BREA OLINDA HIGH

Kim, Anderson M.

CANYON HIGH

Patel, Jiya M.

Rosu, Alexander N.

CAPISTRANO VALLEY HIGH

Leuenberger, Ryan J.

Wang, Teddy

CORONA DEL MAR HIGH

Chang, Takeshi A.

Jenkins, Jasmine E.

Nguyen, Hailey C.

Nguyen, Kaitlyn M.

Parzick, Wade H.

CREAN LUTHERAN HIGH

Johnson, Trent M.

Kam, Julianne

Yen, Joelle L.

DANA HILLS HIGH

Calder, William S.

EL DORADO HIGH

Gess, Evan

Robinson, Julia C.

EL MODENA HIGH

Bae, Michelle E.

EDISON HIGH

Aaron, Aneliese Y.

FAIRMONT PREPARATORY ACADEMY

Doan, Vincent V.

FOOTHILL HIGH

Sinha, Saahil P.

FOUNTAIN VALLEY HIGH

Heydorn, Bennett A.

Meister, Reese C.

Park, Hannah C.

Vu, Leonard P.

FULLERTON UNION HIGH

Hung, Avery Y.

GARDEN GROVE HIGH

Nguyen, Tri T.

Pham, Taylor

HOMESCHOOL

Kofford, Joshua D.

Wen, April Y.

HUNTINGTON BEACH HIGH

Brazao, Joshua J.

Bresnan, Kaitlyn Q.

Hazard, Eve I.

Vansomphone, Arin P.

IRVINE HIGH

Chau, Paul S.

Guo, Grace M.

Lee, Ryan J.

JSERRA CATHOLIC HIGH

Kim, Derek

LAGUNA BEACH HIGH

Herkins, Christopher

Hundhausen, Keira

Seybold, Elaina

LA QUINTA HIGH

Nguyen, Breanna B.

LOS ALAMITOS HIGH

Carrion, Juan C.

Huq, Joshua G.

Kim, Dana

Kim, Sean S.

Ling, Jamin D.

Wu, Daniel W.

MARINA HIGH

Vu, Vanson H.

NORTHWOOD HIGH

Aggarwal, Aditya

Das, Tanay

Deng, William J.

Gao, Andrew Z.

Gima, David S.

Jin, Dayun

Lee, Derek T.

Parikh, Jeet

Quraishi, Maryam E.

Syed, Saleh S.

Tang, Sabrina

Xu, Haowei

ORANGE COUNTY SCHOOL OF THE ARTS

Chen, Edward

Given, Katherine G.

Ho, Joseph W.

Kim, Tane

Malabarba, Katerina A.

Park, Elise G.

Sharma, Aadya

Tatsuta, Nathan

Toner, Luke J.

Yang, Jeffrey

Yang, Lacole

Yi, James D.

Zhang, Xinchun A.

ORANGE LUTHERAN HIGH

Cheng, Cassidy M.

Sandhu, Sunil K.

OXFORD ACADEMY

Dara, Vaibhav S.

Kim, Sean H.

Kwon, Marcus Y.

Lee, Matthew

Pace, Isabella M.

PACIFICA CHRISTIAN HIGH

Callaghan, Aubrey E.

PORTOLA HIGH

Chae, Jeremy J.

Chaudhary, Siddhant S.

Joshi, Atharv

Kim, Christian Y.

Mishra, Siya R.

Narenthiran, Nilan

Ngo, Elise V.

Nguyen, Allyse K.

Shiono, Taisho C.

SAGE HILL SCHOOL

Chao, Serena P.

Choi, Ryan J.

Ma, Nicole H.

Qiu, Sophie Y.

Robertson, Katherine C.

Shu, Yihan

Sun, Sophia B.

SAN JUAN HILLS HIGH

Kulkarni, Seema Shanti D.

Leykauf, Mason K.

SANTA MARGARITA CATHOLIC HIGH

Kim, Ethan

Lin, Xihan

ST. MARGARET’S EPISCOPAL SCHOOL

Guo, Tai

Kim, Alexander

SUNNY HILLS HIGH

Hsu, Evan S.

Huang, Karen J.

Koh, Brandon

Lee, Hannah K.

Park, Subin

TARBUT V’TORAH COMMUNITY DAY SCHOOL

Cherem, Eitan V.

TESORO HIGH

Khalili, Nazlee A.

Lee, Fiona

Mishra, Ayati

Nguyen, Ryan T.

Pastorkovich, Nicholas E.

Vellandi, Carlo A.

Zhang, Calvin C.

TRABUCO HILLS HIGH

Liu, Xinhui

Wang, Eric Y.

TROY HIGH

Chuabanlue, Hannah Y.

Chugani, Krishna S.

Dong, Jason A.

Gou, Linlu L.

Haskell, Gabriel C.

Hong, Eric S.

Hsieh, Ryder Y.

Jain, Puru

Ji, Melinda

John, Chris J.

Kasturi, Kaushik V.

Kim, Mary H.

Kim, Yohana J.

Lee, Andrew

Lim, Amanda S.

Mahna, Ayush

Pak, Kyle K.

Park, Austin J.

Pashikanti, Adarsh

Sier, Austin

Sohn, Theo N.

Song, Geon Woo

Suh, Ryan J.

Sun, Jeff H.

Thomas, Joana A.

Wang, Jessie

Wang, Shengjie

Wu, Anna

Yuan, Keith M.

Zhang, Guohan H.

Zhou, Adriana

Zhu, Franklin S.

UNIVERSITY HIGH

Apelian, Alec C.

Bosworth, Jarom H.

Cao, Wendy

Chen, Jessie

Dishon, Nathan A.

Do, Nguyen P.

Du, Xinjun

Fleischman, Moses D.

Hiraoka, Daichi

Hui, Kayla

Im, Sanghyuk H.

Jung, Jasmine

Kamat, Om M.

Karthikeyan, Ananya

Kheni, Poorvi

Kopylova, Maia

Li, Edward B.

Li, Eric K.

Lo, Andrew T.

Lu, Kristine

McPhie, John D.

Ouyang, Nathan Y.

Qu, Annie

Shabanie, Julia R.

Shi, James H.

Srinivasan, Priya C.

Tsai, Jocelyn

Wang, Jialin

Wu, Julianne A.

Zhang, Kairui

Zheng, Oliver H.

Zhou, Winston S.

VALENCIA HIGH

Chao, Jessica T.

Kim, Kangsan A.

Lee, Nathan H.

Ma, Alicia K.

McCathern, Asher S.

Park, Joseph J.

Vidhun, Tanya J.

Wong, Alyssa G.

Youm, Dong H.

VILLA PARK HIGH

Trinh, Jason

WOODBRIDGE HIGH

Beak, Minho

Hua, Katherine

Ignatov, Andrei M.

Miller, Natalie X.

Nishizaka, Ava H.

Shih, Abigail

Tsaowimonsiri, Catherine

Yamamoto, Senna A.

YORBA LINDA HIGH

Bulis, Noelle L.

Chi, Leonardo T.

Lee, Abigail S.

Leong, Justin

Rezk, Kareem

Wu, Kaitlyn S.

Yang, Ethan W.