PLEASANT HILL, Calif. — Contra Costa County Superintendent of Schools Lynn Mackey congratulated 114 high school seniors for being named Semifinalists in the 69th annual National Merit Scholarship Program. The awards were announced last week.
Led by 52 students at Dougherty Valley High School in the San Ramon Valley Unified School District, there are 13 Contra Costa County high schools represented on the list of more than 16,000 National Semifinalists.
“Being named a National Merit Scholarship Semifinalist is an accomplishment for these students and their families,” Contra Costa County Superintendent of Schools Lynn Mackey said. “This recognition is the result of a commitment to academic excellence from the students, their families and school communities. I want to thank the teachers and school employees for supporting these scholars and wish the students good luck as they compete for National Merit scholarships.”
Schools with Semifinalists include Dougherty Valley (52), Monte Vista (15), California (8), Campolindo (11), and Miramonte (10) high schools. Athenian, Acalanes, and Los Lomas high schools, each had three Semifinalists. Bentley, Northgate, and San Ramon Valley high schools each had two Semifinalists. El Cerrito and College Park high schools each had one Semifinalist. Additionally, one Semifinalist from Danville is listed as a homeschool student.
These high school seniors have an opportunity to continue in the competition for some 7,140 National Merit Scholarships worth nearly $28 million that will be offered next spring. To be considered for a Merit Scholarship award, Semifinalists must fulfill several requirements to advance to the Finalist level of the competition. About 95 percent of the Semifinalists are expected to attain Finalist standing, and approximately half of the Finalists will win a National Merit Scholarship, earning the Merit Scholar title.
Over 1.3 million juniors in 21,000 high schools 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 group of Semifinalists represents less than one percent of U.S. high school seniors and includes the highest-scoring entrants in each state. National Merit Scholarship winners of 2024 will be announced in four nationwide news releases beginning in April and concluding in July.
More information about the National Merit Scholarship program can be found online at https://www.nationalmerit.org/.
CONTRA COSTA COUNTY NATIONAL MERIT SCHOLARSHIP SEMIFINALISTS
ACALANES HIGH SCHOOL – 3
- Brekke, Benjamin A.
- Brinkman, Alana A.
- DiPrisco, Aidan J.
ATHENIAN SCHOOL – 3
- Aggarwal, Aarav
- Jarvis, Zachary J.
- Riebli, Ella H.
BENTLEY SCHOOL – 2
- Gutwill, Jonah W.
- Luo, Jason
CALIFORNIA HIGH SCHOOL – 12
- Gadad, Sara
- Ma, Andrew
- Manjunath, Aarav
- Milasincic, Jax C.
- Salem Sathish, Shravya
- Wang, Ada
- Wang, Arthur
- Wang, Brian
CAMPOLINDO HIGH SCHOOL – 11
- Castilla-Liu, Marina E.
- Damiano, Nina
- Dolge, Nicolo B.
- Hardy, Elizabeth C.
- Heidersbach, Henry S.
- Lan, Michael
- Seo, Christopher
- Srivastava, Naina
- Tringe, Laurel K.
- Wang, Yu Xin
- Young, Benjamin D.
COLLEGE PARK – 1
- Celestre, Griffin R.
DOUGHERTY VALLEY HIGH SCHOOL – 52
- Babarjung, Prerita
- Bora, Anushka
- Caglar, Dilara
- Chander, Siddharth
- Chun, Kyle
- Das, Anaisha
- Dong, Luciana
- Duan, Mackenzie
- Duvvuri, Ashish
- Gao, Shaun
- Gaonkar, Nidhi
- Ghai, Aadi
- Goyal, Avani
- Grewal, Shirin Kaur K.
- Harinath, Dhruv
- He, Wesley
- Ilavajuthy, Aditi
- Kapur, Abigail
- Kolluru, Vaishnavi
- Kondapalli, Neel
- Koneti, Swadhistha
- Kulkarni, Kushal
- Kwek, Eugene
- Kwek, Marcus
- Lai, Kylie
- Lau, Anna
- Lee, Owen
- Li, Michelle
- Lin, Joyce
- Liu, Danny
- Maroo, Ansh
- Matharasi, Taneesh V.
- Mundlapudi, Sanjna
- Pamula, Ashray
- Park, John
- Park, Taejun
- Peng, Elaine
- Pinnamaneni, Ananya
- Pressman, Isaac
- Rao, Tanvi
- Reddy, Rohan
- Saini, Shruti
- Shanker, Anand
- Singh, Gia
- Taneja, Anushka
- Wadhwa, Arav
- Wang, Jerry
- Wong, Koji
- Wu, Evelyn
- Yan, Neal Y.
- Yang, Dennis J.
- Yu, Andrew
EL CERRITO – 1
Sun, Christopher
HOMESCHOOL – 1
Klieger, Benjamin G., Danville
LOS LOMAS HIGH SCHOOL – 3
Kim, Ethan M.
Park, Andrew J.
Thirumaligai, Srihari A.
MIRAMONTE HIGH SCHOOL – 10
- Battersby, Alexander
- Berg, Cameron C.
- Cao, Antong
- Guo, Nicole Y.
- Inesi, Ardal J.
- Lee, Olivia Y.
- Maboudian, Leila M.
- Sandhu, Ravi W.
- Scheiner, Casey J.
- Vo, Vajra T.
MONTE VISTA HIGH SCHOOL – 15
- Chan, Anthony
- Chen, Ethan
- Chen, Owen
- Fang, Alan
- Gulcu, Ethem
- Huang, Aidan N.
- Jiang, Alice
- Kalin, Emily M.
- Lu, Jonathan M.
- Patnaik, Vivaan
- Pleat, Elkan
- Ramesh, Adithya
- Tan, Sheldon U.
- Yang, Carolyn
- Yang, Hannah
NORTHGATE – 2
- Abedin, Akash R.
- Carcamo, Sophia R.
SAN RAMON VALLEY HIGH SCHOOL – 2
- Montana, Canyon
- Wu, Youwen
About Contra Costa County Office of Education
One of 58 counties in California, Contra Costa County has the 11th largest public-school student population in the state (approximately 169,225 students). Officially established in 1932, CCCOE has a long history of providing direct services to some of our county’s most vulnerable students, including young people who are incarcerated, homeless, or in foster care, as well as students who have severe physical or emotional challenges.
CCCOE also provides support services to schools and school districts in Contra Costa County; services that can be handled most effectively and economically on a regional basis rather than by each of the county’s 18 school districts. These services range from budget approval and fiscal support to technology infrastructure, communication support, and high-level professional development opportunities for educators. CCCOE maintains a website at www.cocoschools.org.
