Seven local students National Merit semifinalists
CONTRA COSTA COUNTY—Seven local seniors were recently named semifinalists in the 66th annual National Merit Scholarship program.
Five Northgate seniors achieved the honor. They are James Arona, Alexis Balashov, Natasha Lee, Ingrid Nordberg and Caroline Wang. Ryan Vaughn of De La Salle and Zia Truong of Ygnacio Valley also are 2020-21 semifinalists.
Of the 16,000 semifinalists from around the United States, about 7,600 will get scholarships next spring worth more than $30 million. To be considered for a Merit Scholarship award, semifinalists must fulfill several requirements to advance to the finalist level of the competition. Over 90 percent of the semifinalists are expected to attain finalist standing and more than half of the finalists will win a National Merit Scholarship.
Over 1.5 million juniors in about 21,000 high schools entered the 2021 National Merit Scholarship Program by taking the 2019 Preliminary SAT/National Merit Scholarship Qualifying Test, which served as an initial screen of program entrants.
The nationwide pool of semifinalists represents less than one percent of U.S. high school seniors. The number of semifinalists in a state is proportional to the state’s percentage of the national total of graduating seniors.