National Merit Semifinalists are announced; see the list for Tampa Bay
The Tampa Bay area this year is home to 173 National Merit Semifinalists from 43 high schools, according to a list released this week by the National Merit Scholarship program.
Six schools had 10 or more semifinalists, led by Hillsborough’s Strawberry Crest High School, which had 18. Others in the double-digits were Palm Harbor University High with 12; Plant High and Robinson High with 11 each; and C. Leon King and Middleton High with 10 each.
The students are among 16,000 high school seniors nationwide competing as Semifinalists for about 7,250 scholarships worth nearly $28 million to be offered in the spring.
The process began in 2021, when students took the Preliminary SAT as juniors. Their scores were among the highest in their respective states.
Among the factors considered in the scholarship selection are a student’s academic record, participation in school and community activities, leadership abilities, employment, other honors and awards, and SAT or ACT scores. Students also must be recommended by a high school official and write an essay.
Here is a list of the local semifinalists:
Hillsborough County
Academy of the Holy Names: Isabel Bequer, Lexline Johnson, Madison Kwo, Katherine Petitt, Brynn Wilary.
Alonso High: Chase Fenske, Andrew Jenkins.
Berkeley Preparatory: Meghna Bukkapatnam, Zoey Chang, Delaney English, Aidan Larkin, Adam Latif, Theodore Schaffer, Aoife Shannon, Pierce Wenham.
Blake High: Leina Owens.
Bloomingdale High: Alexa Brown, Jacob Delikat, Isabella Larson
Brooks DeBartolo High: Bethany Bosworth, Gahyun Kim.
C. Leon King High: Adam Cheng, Pranith Geddapu, Ananya Harshe, LeAnn Ho, Kevin Jin, Megha Manoj, Clara Oh, Luis Perez, Shiva Ranganathan, Melody Zhang.
Carrollwood Day School: Vikram Baliga, Carter Casey, Mahir Siddiqui.
Durant High: Eileen Jelsovsky, Kinsley Trlak.
Freedom High: Jessica Afiat, Britney Pun.
Gaither High: Liam Ballard, Sara Fernandez, Olivia West.
Hillsborough High: Lane Chin, Taban Chin, Shaunak Joshi, Yining Liu, Yun Joo Noh, Joshua Selvan, Lily Taylor, Kaitlyn Tran.
Homeschool: Malaika Guttoh.
Jesuit High: Kyle Boyes, Anthony Donnelly, Shane Donnelly, Ayden Lee, Rylan Soriano, Luke Turner, Jack Uteg, Collin Williams.
Lennard High: Jasmine Cheong.
Middleton High: Saeed Ansari, Bhavya Bansal, Katherine Blessing, Oliver Cheese, Pranav Kulkarni, Ishan Patel, Saanvi Prasad, Suraj Raghunathan, Karthik Sara, Pranav Tammineedi.
Newsome High: Erik Dyer, Sophia Florea, Tanushree Hadavale, Findlay Hartman, Sebastian Nathanson, John O’Toole, Jackson Powell, Vasanth Srinivasan.
Plant High: Katherine Bentley, Scout Deminico, Arshan Falasiri, Elliot Francolla, Kevin Huang, Presley Lomel, Luke McLaughlin, Natalie Meyer, Benjamin Norbom, Om Thakur, Hannah Woodside.
Robinson High: Grace Barrett, Presley Berman, Leyna Doan, Skyllar Erikson, Jacob Han, Diego Hernandez-Nunez, Nathaniel Jennewein, Casey Kemp, Vivian Mesa, Praveen Prabaharan, Isabella Rodrigues.
Sickles High: Lucca Castro, Jeremy Ehrenpreis, Philip Tziamtzis.
Steinbrenner High: Kartikeye Gupta, Louis Li, Andrew Maroun.
Strawberry Crest High: Mahika Balaraju, Akhil Challa, Amanda Chung, Nitish Goel, Shreya Gullapalli, Dana John, Chloe Jones, Ria Kalaria, Prabhath Kolli, Leo Meng, Shalini Nandam, Varun Patel, Keerthi Penumuchu, Amulya Ravipati, Angshuman Talukdar, Haley Thomas, Avaneesh Venkatesh, Rahil Zaveri.
Sumner High: Ethan Varn
Tampa Preparatory School: Karnik Donepudi, Joseph Lechman, Emma Lefferts, Daniel Nelson, Walker Wilson.
Wharton High: Robert Raitt.
Pasco
Academy at the Lakes: Saipriya Gande, Saneyah Khan.
Cypress Creek High: Anastasia Bogdatova.
Land O’Lakes High: Thehan Atalugama, Hannah Beatty, Andrew Domonkos, Sarvesh Gade, Allen Ho, Rishabh Kanodia, Andria Wang.
Mitchell High: Nicole Baum.
Wesley Chapel High: Jenna Ly.
Wiregrass Ranch High: Diganto Ray-Sarkar.
Pinellas
Calvary Christian: Jonathan O’Harrow.
Canterbury School of Florida: John Q. Adams.
Clearwater Central Catholic: Annamaria Donnelly, Katherine Phy.
East Lake High: Dimitri Bayramov, John Schneuker Diaz.
Lakewood High: Rebecca Borissova.
Largo High: Anna Bakshia, Elise Tong.
Palm Harbor University High: Jack Bodolay, William Campbell, Hailey Foster, Damian Gold, Hannah Hipolito, Ari Katz, Andrew Larsen, Janet Jiaxin Liu, Aditya Patel, Nathan Staab, Anish Tejomurtula, Adela Wiercioch.
Shorecrest Preparatory School: Addison Sptaru, Kevin Tang, Dylan Winer.
St. Petersburg Catholic High: Isabella Juarez.
St. Petersburg Collegiate High: Dylin Haugh, Mia Straley.
St. Petersburg High: Bronwyn Ewert, Sidney Moyer, Gavin Tran.
