Education

93 Charlotte students are National Merit Scholarship semifinalists this year. Here’s the list

School districts across North Carolina have seen student enrollment decline since the 2020 pandemic. Officials say there are a number of reasons, from choosing charter or private school to moving where housing is affordable.
School districts across North Carolina have seen student enrollment decline since the 2020 pandemic. Officials say there are a number of reasons, from choosing charter or private school to moving where housing is affordable. mrodriguez@charlotteobserver.com

Around 16,000 students from around the country were selected as semifinalists in the 71st National Merit Scholarship program last week, from 1.3 million competitors. From Charlotte high schools, 93 students made the cut.

Approximately 95% of semifinalists will advance to become finalists, and 50% of those will be awarded the title of Merit Scholar and be eligible for one of approximately 6,930 merit scholarships that will be offered next spring, at $2,500 a piece. In total, around $26 million in scholarships will be awarded, according to the National Merit Scholarship Corporation.

To qualify to be a semifinalist, students must score in the top 1% of test-takers in the state on the PSAT, which this year’s cohort took in fall 2024 as high school juniors.

Charlotte and the surrounding areas all together had 145 semifinalists on this year’s list. The local schools with the most semi-finalists were Ardrey Kell High School, Myers Park High School and Charlotte Latin School.

Here’s the list of Charlotte-area semifinalists:

Charlotte

Ardrey Kell High School

  • Shubh Agarwal
  • Sofia Aguila Lopez
  • Shardul S. Arya
  • Ishanee P. Bhangay
  • Arya Dave
  • Cooper Duffy
  • Nethra Gopalakrishnan
  • Rohan J. Hansalia
  • Peter M. Karamanov
  • Jahnavi Kari
  • Varune N. Kulasingam
  • Aarnav Kumar
  • Nikhil A. Kumar
  • Avah Lin
  • Joseph W. Liu
  • Maryn E. Medina
  • Jonas PakLin
  • Sung Yeon Park
  • Krish Ramaraj
  • Sanat V. Rao
  • Lydia Shen
  • Ray Sun 
  • Ray Tan
  • Sameeya Vasan
  • Lucas Yuan
  • Sophie B. Zhang

Ballantyne Ridge High School

  • Saankhya Kotha

Bradford Preparatory School

  • Eden Justice
  • Ian Watson 

Charlotte Catholic High School

  • Chloe G. Crabtree
  • Nathan N. D’Costa
  • Soleil A. Demetry
  • Isabella C. Lugg
  • Maggie E. Myers
  • Emma P.  Redican
  • Julianna J. Taylor

Charlotte Christian School

  • Keller Ulman

Charlotte Country Day School

  • Benjamin C. Eligator
  • Tierney E. King
  • Caroline G. Mallard
  • Brady H. Mills
  • Ella G. Parsons
  • Soraya R. Shah

Charlotte Latin School

  • Avery D. Bly
  • Luca Bravo
  • Kevin L. Budzichowski
  • Emily Y. Cao
  • Connor F. Cruz
  • Kabir A. Nawaz
  • Jacqueline Rao
  • Kelsey L. Sciacca
  • Isabel Y. Yang
  • Claire J. Zhang
  • Lynn J. Zhao
  • Ryan R. Zhou

East Mecklenburg High School

  • Reid R. Banerjee
  • Carl B. LeGrone
  • Simon D. Wilson

Home School/Online School

  • Elliott Kurta

Myers Park High School

  • Everett R. Benchich
  • Elizabeth M. Hammers
  • Sienna M. Heinrich
  • Caroline S. Hood
  • Lillian R. Mangan
  • Charlotte A. Manning
  • Thomas B. Morrow
  • Lucas P. Nazemzadeh
  • Eve S. Norton
  • Alexa A. Reynolds
  • Eleanor D. Rust
  • Rachel L. Stitt
  • Elizabeth G. Watson
  • Cameron C. Williams

Palisades High School

  • Dallin S. Goodrich

Providence Day School

  • Samson Chamberlain
  • Wesley Kropf
  • April Liu
  • Owen Moore
  • John Oberer
  • Coley Roberson
  • Logan Schaffer
  • Alexander Shi
  • Eleanor Zhang

Providence High School

  • Tokugen Drake
  • Nitya Garg
  • Lawrence He
  • Erika J. Holden
  • Chase W. Khanolkar
  • Brayden A. Magids
  • Hansini Narayanan
  • Matthew D. Perrone
  • Jackson H. Powell
  • Jason Yan

Concord

Cabarrus Health Sciences Institute

  • Oviya Murugan
  • Shiven Nagabandi

Cannon School

  • Kendall G. Laguerre
  • Arjun A. Ram
  • Ryan L. Schreck

Cox Mill High School

  • Ritvik Dandi
  • Neil Goyal
  • Mohammed F. Shamim

Northwest Cabarrus High School

  • Carson Verburg

Cornelius

William Amos Hough High School

  • John M. Roeder

Davidson

Community School of Davidson

  • Anya Jhingran
  • Robert Lake

Davidson Day School

  • Alexis L. Blanchette

Gastonia

Gaston Day School

  • Bennett Ackerman

Huntersville

North Mecklenburg High School

  • Prathyek Poojary

Matthews

Arborbrook Christian Academy

  • Nathan Elms

David W. Butler High School

  • Bodhi T. Lam

Carmel Christian School

  • Elijah Chen
  • Sloan Pettus

Covenant Day School

  • Rebecca P. Cobb
  • Jackson D. Lapp

Weddington High School

  • Owen Carter
  • Prisha Kansal
  • Veeksha Patlolla
  • Harini Rajakumar
  • Chrysostomos Rigas
  • Arkapravo Sen
  • Thomas Suttles
  • Anvi Verma
  • Bethany Xiques

Monroe

Central Academy of Technology and the Arts

  • Anika Garg
  • Elvin Joseph
  • Preston Logan
  • Penelope Rauscher
  • Samiksha Senapati
  • Arielle Trent

Mooresville

Lake Norman High School

  • Cedrickanto Donbosco
  • Liberty Prince

Pine Lake Preparatory

  • Eben D. Pruitt

Waxhaw

Cuthbertson High School

  • Elizabeth G. Sobolev

Homeschool/Online School

  • Timothy Wenger

Marvin Ridge High School

  • Harshini Bala
  • Mason Csantaveri
  • Alicia Fang
  • Terrance Fang
  • Rushika Mahavadi
  • Pranav Mallineni
  • Livia Moore
  • Preston Scott
  • Kripa Sudhir
  • Sahana Venkatesh
  • Catherine Zhou
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Rebecca Noel
The Charlotte Observer
Rebecca Noel reports on education for The Charlotte Observer. She’s a native of Houston, Texas, and graduated from Rice University. She later received a master’s degree in journalism from the University of Missouri. When she’s not reporting, she enjoys reading, running and frequenting coffee shops around Charlotte.
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