Five dozen students across the Capitol region are semifinalists for a National Merit Scholarship, out of 16,000 semifinalists nationwide for the 65th annual scholarship competition.
The 60 high school seniors will continue on to compete for 7,500 scholarships. The scholarships are worth more than $31 million and will be awarded in the spring.
Semifinalists must fulfill several requirements to advance to the finalist level. More than 90% of the semifinalists are expected to attain finalist standing, with about half of the finalists receiving scholarships and earning the merit scholar title.
Semifinalists were drawn from a pool of 1.5 million juniors in 21,000 high schools who took the PSAT in 2018.
The latest semifinalists in the capital region:
BATON ROUGE
Baton Rouge Magnet High: Vishal Easwar, Bingmiao Guan, Steven Guo, Madelyn R. Keller, Miles I. Lee, Ali Marzoughi, Ranna Okeil, Khanh C. Pham, Krishna R. Pochana, Alison Qi, Grace Y. Qian, Amanda N. Richter, Amy E. Ruckman, Marcus C. Schafer, Cindy Y. Zheng and Kevin Zhou
Catholic High: Nicholas M. Fanguy, Francis C. Finucane, Elliot D. Fontenot, Jefferson F. Koonce, Joshua J. Langlois and Stewart A. Roeling
The Dunham School: Ciara P. Venable
Episcopal High: Sara E. Be, Valerie E. Beggs, John S. Campbell, Trevor S. Heath, Nicholas L. Johannessen, Celia A. Kiesel, Laura J. Kurtz, Wyatt J. Laiche, John A. Pojman, Adam L. Reid and Ian M. Sabolik
Lee High: Wenlin W. Ng, Ryan H. Thomas, Natasha Thorpe and Evonne Yang
LSU Lab School: Isabelle Cashe, Elise M. Gutierrez, Nils Newhauser, Hannah V. Traylor and David B. Winstead
Parkview Baptist High: Matthew B. McKey
Runnels School: Aubri M. Watts
St. Joseph’s Academy: Stephanie N. Armond, Mary C. Daniels, Mary M Marchand, Sara G. Mayeux, Shreya V. Reshbmwala, Claire M. Tate and Thuc Nhan N. Tran
Woodlawn High: Joshua L. Serio
DENHAM SPRINGS
Denham Springs High: Sophie K. Faircloth and Kateland N. Howard
GONZALES
Homeschool: Nathaniel J. Spears
WATSON
Live Oak High: Emily G. Rushing and Tyler A. Zeringue
ZACHARY
Zachary High: Logan C. Ladnier, Miranda N. Schaefer and John M. Varnado