Officials of the National Merit Scholarship Corporation^®(NMSC) announced the names of 80 Gwinnett County Public Schools (GCPS) seniors and semifinalists in the 69th annual National Merit Scholarship Program. These academically talented students are part of 16,000 seniors across the U.S. who have an opportunity to continue in the competition for 7,140 National Merit Scholarships worth nearly $28 million that will be offered next spring.

To be considered for a National Merit^® Scholarship award, semifinalists must fulfill several requirements to advance to the finalist level of the competition. About 95% of the semifinalists are expected to attain finalist standing, and approximately half of the finalists will win a National Merit^® Scholarship, earning the Merit Scholar^® title.

GCPS’ 2023-2024 National Merit Scholarship Semifinalists:

Archer High

• Brandon J. Woolfolk

Brookwood High

• Ella C. Chen
• Dillon Grose
• Katherine R. Johnson
• Jake C. Lin
• Mili N. Patel
• Kapil Shankar
• Scarlett I. Simmon
• Aidan T. Stanley
• Shayda E. Torab
• Matthew Xu
• Calvin H. Zhu

Collins Hill High

• Deborah Hwang

Duluth High

• Cassandra E. Norris

Gwinnett School of Mathematics, Science, and Technology

• Gabriel M. Babb
• Ipsita Bhattacharya
• Rayna X. Chang
• Iian M. Chen
• Sunny N. Desai
• Jason Dong
• Bryan E. Ebagua
• Harold H. Fu
• Haven A. Hardy
• Inhyuk Hwang
• Kevin Jacob
• Abhiram Kapaganty
• Branden H. Kim
• Hakimuddin H. Kitabwalla
• Jade C. Lasanajak
• Parv Mahajan
• Diana E. Mawejje
• Junmo Moon
• Aayan M. Mukul
• Seohyun Park
• Anandita Pathak
• Emily H. Phan
• Sohaib Samad
• Mitesh M. Shah
• Kaylyn Shao
• Elizabeth Singh
• Shreya S. Srinivasan
• Shivani H. Trivedi
• Sohum Trivedi
• Julian Varga
• Nathan A. Wong
• Eric Xu
• Steven X. Zhou

Lanier High

• Cameron B. Lott

Mill Creek High

• Esther M. Jung
• Alexander J. Vaitl

Norcross High

• Lisa C. Van Ness

North Gwinnett High

• Lynden S. Baek
• Dan Bratu
• Ian J. Carsley
• Yeseo Han
• Aaron J. Kim
• Philip Kim
• Brennan D. Klingenberg
• Jiali Liu
• Eunice B. Maia
• Keira C. Olds
• Claire Park
• Ethan S. Ro
• Jonathan K. Schofield
• Arjun R. Sheth
• Noble L. Strickland
• Jenny Thai
• Jillian E. Vacha
• Norman Wang

Parkview High

• Josie Chang
• Grace M. Chiu
• Aaron Qu
• Alexis U. Solorzano
• Devin A. Wright
• Henney S. Wu

Paul Duke STEM High

• Peyton J. Harvey

Peachtree Ridge High

• Rahul Pandit
• Hailey Y. Park
• Ananya Saxena

Seckinger High

• Hanvit L. Jung

Over 1.3 million juniors from 21,000 high schools entered the 2024 National Merit Scholarship Program by taking the 2022 Preliminary SAT/National Merit Scholarship Qualifying Test (PSAT/NMSQT^®), which served as an initial screen of program entrants. The nationwide pool of semifinalists, representing less than one percent of U.S. high school seniors, includes the highest-scoring entrants in each state.

To become a finalist, a semifinalist must 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.