Fifty-seven LCPS students have been named National Merit Scholarship semifinalists. These LCPS students were among the 1.3 million high school juniors who entered the 2025 National Merit Scholarship Program by taking the 2023 Preliminary SAT/National Merit Scholarship Qualifying Test (PSAT/NMSQT), which served as an initial screen of program entrants. More than 16,000 students were named NMSC semifinalists. The number of semifinalists in a state is proportional to the state’s percentage of the national total of graduating seniors.
Below are the names of the LCPS National Merit semifinalists:
Lamees Alkarmi
Arjun M. Babla
Akansha Bagga
Aditya Bansal
Siona Bhardwaj
Sebastian E. Boyles
Talija “Lija” S. Brunovskis
Rabia S. Chadha
Sarah H. Chung
Siri Gaddam
Ashrita Gandhari
Avni Garg
Suchir Godavarthi
Rishabh Goel
Nawwaf Hannan
Sreeja Iragavarapu
Soham Jain
Manvita “Lucky” Kancharla
Eric L. Kendall
Ethan H. Kim
Richa Kishore
Rohan R. Kotla
Siddarth R. Kumar
Amelia M. Lee
Byron B. Legaspi
Aniketh Luchmapurkar
Anish Malepati
Jonathan S. Mallett
Apoorva S. Mandadi
Praneel V. Mangalapurapu
Aakash N. Maskeri
Ethan J. Mathias
Rohan K. Matta
Shyaam Mukundan
Saanvi Nandikonda
Nikitha Nishant
Lucas A. Pham
Vaidehi Rajagopalan
Grant C. Rippey
Victoria M. Rusaeva
Palak N. Sanghavi
Yoshi Sarkar
Pratyush Saxena
Aayan R. Shah
Aksh S. Shah
Naeva B. Shah
Anijith Short
Ria Singh
Kruthi Sudigali
Callia Q. Sun
Kevin E. Tamir
Eric Tang
Nicholas J. Toskey
Sydney M. Williams
Pallavi Yalamanchilli
Harry O. Yoon
Ray Y. Zhang
NMSC semifinalists have the opportunity to continue in the competition for National Merit Scholarships, which will be awarded in the spring. To be considered for a Merit Scholarship award, semifinalists must fulfill several requirements to advance to the finalist level of the competition. To become a finalist, the semifinalist and a high school official must submit a detailed scholarship application to provide information about the semifinalist’s academic record, participation in school and community activities that demonstrated leadership abilities, and honors and awards received. A semifinalist must also have an outstanding academic record throughout high school, be endorsed and recommended by a high school official, write an essay, and earn SAT or ACT scores that confirm the student’s earlier performance on the qualifying test. Finalists will be notified in February.
All National Merit Scholarship winners will be selected from this group of finalists. Merit Scholar designees are selected based on their skills, accomplishments, and potential for success in rigorous college studies without regard to gender, race, ethnic origin, or religious preference.
Three types of National Merit Scholarships will be offered in the spring of 2025: National Merit $2,500 scholarships, corporate-sponsored scholarships, and college-sponsored scholarships. 2025 National Merit Scholarship winners will be announced between April and July.