This year, 16 students from Huron, out of 78 students from Washtenaw County and out of 16,000 nationwide, were nominated as semifinalists for the National Merit Scholarship. These students are listed below: 

Max Z. Bian

Akshar S. Cowlagi

Aidan A. Gadepalli

Anita A. Gaenko

Tai Karir

Doyeon Kim

Teyin A. Kim

Vanya Krishna

Ethan H. Ku

Nathan S. Leung

Zachary E. Lin

Melinda Mei

Samuel P. Regenbogen

Madhav Sivadasan

Bradley E. Spector

Anirudh S. Venkat

To qualify, a student must be enrolled as a high school student planning to attend college, and achieve a certain score above a certain index on the PSAT/NMSQT in their junior year of high school.  They must also have exceptional academic record throughout the entirety of high school, and have letters of recommendation written by a high school official, such as a principal. Along with that, they must write an essay and later, earn other standardized testing (like the SAT or ACT) scores that reinforce how they performed on the previous preliminary test. 

To be a National Merit Scholarship finalist, semifinalists submit scholarship applications that include more detailed information regarding their academic record, leadership roles, honors, awards, and more. 

“I’m very honored to be given this title,” semifinalist Nathan Leung said. “I did a lot of SAT studying to prepare.”