Fifteen Apple Valley-Rosemount-Eagan Seniors are National Merit Semifinalists

Fifteen District 196 high school seniors have been named semifinalists in the 2014 National Merit Scholarship Program and another 29 seniors are being recognized as National Merit commended students this year based on tests they took last year as juniors. The names of the merit semifinalists and commended students in this 59th annual scholarship program were released Sept. 11 by the National Merit Scholarship Corporation.

The 15 National Merit semifinalists from District 196 are:

·      Alexandria Daggett and Jonathan Morrow of Apple Valley High School;

·      Nurullah Goren, Emily Quick, Alexandra Rosati, Laurel Scott and Matthew Tran of Eagan High School;

·      Jiwon Joung, John Kurila, Elizabeth Palmi, Mara Reed and Jay Schuffenhauer of Eastview High School, and

·      Emily Brossart, Connor Hagen and Anshika Rai of Rosemount High School.

Students are selected as National Merit semifinalists based on their scores on the Preliminary Scholastic Aptitude Test/National Merit Scholarship Qualifying Test (PSAT/NMSQT), which they take as juniors. Approximately 1.5 million juniors in nearly 22,000 U.S. high schools took the test last year.

National Merit semifinalists rank among the top 1 percent of high school seniors nationwide and are eligible to compete for the more than 8,000 merit scholarships – totaling approximately $35 million – which will be awarded next spring. The semifinalists may submit additional information in order to be considered for selection as a finalist. Approximately 90 percent of semifinalists will be named finalists in spring 2014 and will be eligible to receive scholarships that are awarded by businesses, colleges and universities, and the National Merit Scholarship Corporation.

The National Merit Scholarship Program also recognizes students whose scores on the PSAT/NMSQT rank them in the top 5 percent of students nationwide. In District 196, the following 29 seniors are 2014 National Merit commended students:

·      Liam Tyler of Apple Valley High School;

·      Talha Ahsan, Jeffrey Ching, Jennifer Fisk, Brady Mavetz, Ayesha Mitha and Sarah Nguyen of Eagan High School;

·      Birgit Alitz, Kaia Bolland, Halley Delong, Erik Lecy, Shabnam Mansur, Ryan Mather, Aesha Mukherjee, Vladimir Sagalovskiy, Patrick Skoglund Nicholas Voysey, Catherine Wallick and Gregory Wolf of Eastview High School;

·      Madison Holtze, Taylor Karns, Andre Nelson, Joe Pearman, Claire Smith, Saikrishna Sunkam, James Terhaar and Caitlin Westlund of Rosemount High School, and

·      Nicholas Aarestad and Kailey Kraus of the School of Environmental Studies.

In addition, Darlington Nwaudo of Eastview High School was named an outstanding participant in the National Achievement Scholarship Program, which recognizes Black American high school students, and Aaron Elizondo of Rosemount High School was identified for the National Hispanic Recognition Program. Eligibility for both of these programs is also based on scores on the qualifying test students take as juniors.