National Merit finalists include 18 from North Shore

Noah Manskar

Eighteen local high school seniors have made the finals in the National Merit Scholarship Competition.

Sahil Abbi, Jane Chen, Ranzhuonan Chen, June Chu, Udit Dave, Vikram Krishnamoorthy and Brian Zhao from Herricks High School; Grace Lee, Vinay Maddula and Emily Park of New Hyde Park Memorial High School; Ryan Bichoupan, Timothy Chen and Alexa Silver of Roslyn High School; and Seth Barshay, William Day, Tiger Gao, Maxwell Silverstein and Isabella Soldano from Paul D. Schreiber High School in Port Washington are among 15,000 from across the country to be named finalists in the national contest.

They advanced to the 61st annual competition’s third round after being named among 16,000 semifinalists in September for their high scores on the Preliminary SAT/National Merit Scholarship Qualifying Test.

Principal Scott Andrews called the Roslyn High students’ finalist status a “wonderfully prestigious honor,” as they represent about 1 percent of the 1.5 million students who took the test to get the distinction.

“We know that they will continue to excel both in and out of the classroom as they move on to college and university,” Andrews said in a statement.

All of Herricks’, New Hyde Park Memorial’s and Schreiber’s semifinalists made the final round, as did three of four from Roslyn High School.

From March through June, about 7,400 of the finalists will win college scholarships from the sponsoring National Merit Scholarship Corporation, colleges and universities or corporations.

To be named finalists, semifinalists must submit an application that includes their academic record, school and community participation, employment, and honors and awards received.

Scholarship winners are selected based on academic record, activities and leadership, test scores, information about their respective schools, letters of recommendation from a school official and personal essays.

Sixteen students from Great Neck high schools and six from Manhasset Secondary School were also named semifinalists in the fall.

A Great Neck school district spokeswoman said schools had not been notified whether their students had been named finalists.

Share this Article