La Jolla Students Named National Merit Scholarship Semifinalists

Approximately 1.5 million high school juniors take the Preliminary SAT/National Merit Scholarship Qualifying Test (PSAT/NMSQT). Out of those students, 16,000 were named National Merit Scholarship Semifinalists and from those, 27 hail from La Jolla schools.

Besides just having a high score, 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 scores that confirm the student’s earlier performance on the qualifying test, according to a press release form the National Merit Scholarship Program.

The academically-talented high schoolers, who are now seniors, have an opportunity to continue in the competition for 8,300 National Merit Scholarships worth more than $32 million.

Winners will be announced beginning in April. 

Here's a list of students from La Jolla who will advance to the next round: 

The Bishop's School

Blake, Sean

Chen, Frances R.

Haft, Michael A.

Hwang, Alice

Jeon, Andrew H.

Kim, Yong-Jun

King, Thomas D.

Liu, David

Meyer, Nicky M.

Qu, Jason

Reynolds, Adam C.

Shin, Jiwon

Solomon Mate, Tomer

Zhao, Eric

La Jolla Country Day School

Edman, Thomas H.

Fry, Andrew M.

Rhodes, Calvin C.

Roberts, Daniel G.

La Jolla High School

Chim, Lydia A.

Diercks, Michaela A.

Dorst, Marian

Eisen, Patrick J.

Fan, Kathleen

Gu, Olivia Y.

Herrmann, Sarah D.

Kleinfeld, Zoe

Nienberg, Marisa C.