Marquette Students Advance to National Merit Scholarship Semifinals

Twenty-five new seniors achieved Semifinalist standing in the 2013 National Merit Scholarship Program, according to a district announcement. 

Marquette High School recipients include:

• Kristin Davis
• Yunshu Luo
• Karan Mathur
• Prasanna Rajasekaran
• Neil Shah
• Meera Zassenhaus
• Weiying Zhang

About 1.5 million juniors in more than 22,000 high schools entered the 2013 National Merit Scholarship competition when they took the 2011 Preliminary SAT/National Merit Scholarship Qualifying Test (PSAT/NMSQT), which served as an initial screen of program entrants. The nationwide pool of Semifinalists represents less than 1 percent of U.S. high school seniors, and includes the highest-scoring entrants in each state. The number of Semifinalists in a state is proportional to the state’s percentage of the national total of graduating seniors.

To become a Finalist, a Semifinalist must have an outstanding academic record, be endorsed and recommended by a school official, and earn SAT scores that confirms their qualifying test performance. Some 15,000 Semifinalists are expected to advance to the Finalist level and compete for National Merit Scholarships, according to Rockwood sources.