11 Radnor Seniors Named National Merit Scholarship Semifinalists

Radnor High School seniors Will Curley, Dafne Doken, Zachary Han, Theo He, Rona Liu-Zhong, Arav Menon, William Meyer, Caroline Monahan, Carter Mountain, Michael Rayer, and Grace Xu were recently named 2024 National Merit Scholarship semifinalists in the 69th annual National Merit Scholarship Program. The students are among 16,000 high school seniors from across the United States and are eligible for some 7,250 scholarships worth nearly $28 million.

High school juniors entered the 2024 National Merit Scholarship Program by taking the 2022 Preliminary SAT/National Merit Scholarship Qualifying Test (PSAT/NMSQT®), which served as an initial screen of program entrants. The nationwide pool of semifinalists, representing less than one percent of U.S. high school seniors, includes the highest-scoring entrants in each state. The number of semifinalists in a state is proportional to the state’s percentage of the national total of graduating seniors. 
 
To become a finalist, the semifinalist and his or her high school must submit a detailed scholarship application, in which they provide information about the semifinalist’s academic record, participation in school and community activities, demonstrated leadership abilities, employment, and honors and awards received. A semifinalist must have an outstanding academic record throughout high school, be endorsed and recommended by a high school official, write an essay, and earn SAT® or ACT® scores that confirm the student’s earlier performance on the qualifying test.
 
Approximately 95% of semifinalists are expected to advance to the finalist level, and in February 2024 they will be notified of this designation. Approximately half of the Finalists will win a National Merit Scholarship, earning the Merit Scholar® title. Merit Scholar designees are selected on the basis of their skills, accomplishments, and potential for success in rigorous college studies, without regard to gender, race, ethnic origin, or religious preference.

Congratulations also to our Commended Students: Shaarvi Bala, Graham Bernabeo, Kaitlin Browne, Jackson Carey, Sophie Carter, Ian Casillas, Elena Chang, Harry Cheong, Zachary Cohen, Natalie Dumin, Luke Evans, Tiernan Flanagan, Nicholas Frascella, Samantha Gasink, Shayna Gross, Arjun Jaswal, Kethan Kalra, Daniel Kaper-Barcelata, Jacob Kellerman, Hayoon Kim, Joshua Lei, Garrett Mayover, Lauren Meyer, Aidan Oliver, Sierra Perrin Hee, Nikita Ravi, Cara Ruggieri, Arjun Singh, Owen Smith, Michael Tropeano, Andrew Yang, and Andrew Yu.

The entire Radnor Township School District community congratulates these seniors on their tremendous accomplishment and wishes them the best of luck moving forward!