After much studying and hard work, 57 students of the class of 2026 were named National Merit Scholar Semifinalists, and 60 more Nationally Commended Scholars.
The semifinalists achievement places them at the top 1% of high school seniors nationwide and have the chance to obtain Merit Scholarship Awards. In order to receive the title of semifinalist or commended scholar, the individual breakdown of Reading and Writing and Math must be at or above a certain number depending on the year.
After a student takes the PSAT their sophomore year, if they achieved a high score they are qualified for the National Merit Prep class that takes place after school throughout junior year which prepares students to aim for the National Merit title.
“I was in the program so I went to all those meetings although my practice scores were kind of low until the very end. Towards PSAT month I would do a practice test every single day,” senior Semifinalist Sadie Loughlin said.
In order to qualify, the students had to have an index score of 214 to be a semifinalist.
Below are the Semifinalists:
Aaron Alter
Aarna Baranwal
Mark Bassin
Alex Batista
Ferrin Besong
Daniel Cai
Zayn Charania
Lindsey Cheng
Ava Cipolla
Yulu Dai
Samuel Danzig
Ramon Diaz
Feiyang Du
Isabel Duffy
Patricia Duffy
Pavel Dzurilla
Armaan Fatteh Patil
Ishika Gadani
Anisha Garg
Gabriel Gavrilescu
Daniella Glebov
Talia Grenier
Kenan Hadeh
Anneliese Hsiao
Anagha Iyer
Dhruv Iyer
Krishna Johri
Maya Jos
Melody Jump
Diego Kellogg
Dhruv Khosla
Nandu Kuttiyil
Kaitlyn Lee
Keith Levy II
Doreen Li
Angelina Lin
Matheus Linhares Guedin
Santiago Lopez
Sadie Loughlin
Stefan Lungescu
Karthik Maddineni
Rishitha Marri
Joshua McMurray
Mikaella Mishiev
Kelsey Montgomery
Henry Nathanson
Darsh Patel
Yevanhelina Porokhniava Hetman
Juan Ruiz
Piya Sarkarati
Aniket Shukla
Jordan Smith
Atulya Tammareddy
Jason Tang
Victoria Tellez-Rahwan
Deana VanDelft
Elizabeth Xiao
Commended Scholars:
Ryan Albataineh
Noah Duro Andre
Emma Boyar
Ella Brennan
Francesco Buttaci Quintero
Ethan Chen
Dylan Chen Zhen
Elie Ciril Jr.
Ruby Cohen
Kellen Crichton
Brooke Davis
Isabella De Leon
Dylan De Schryver
Neel Dhuruva
Addison Esler
Christian Esler Jr.
Matias Garcia La Barca
Kieran Gill
David Gomez
Cecilia Gonzalez-Jimenez
Emma Griffith
Vinisha Gurudu
Alexey Guydouk
Sophie Hochmair
Daniel Huang
Alan Jith
Jose-Miguel Keith Munguia
Rachel Kessler
Gabriella Kucher
Nicholas Kwok
Arsh Lalani
Jayden Lang
Sofia Lisamore
Yechang Liu
Ethan Lyons
Madeleine Mahan
Hamza Mairajuddin
Hamid Moghaddam Adames
Jason Moya
Jaimin Patel
Veronica Perez
Brianne Pierre
Juliana Pineda
Aaron Pinto
Pranav Rai
Adam Saleh
Elizabeth Schenker
Guillermo Selva Randall
Anay Sharma
Lina Song
Matthew Squeri
Shania Srivastav
Alina Sukhovskaya
Felippe Thormann
Alice Wu
Arthur Xiao
Cara Xie
Julie Ye
Valerie Younes
Xuyang Zhang
Combined in the class of 2026, 57 students were semifinalists and 60 more were commended scholars, making them in the top 9% in the state. (Photo/American Heritage School)
