The National Merit Scholarship Corporation has started its nationwide search for the students who will be named 2023 National Merit Scholars, winners of scholarships worth nearly $28 million that will be announced starting next spring. As part of this first step, 71 Gwinnett County Public Schools (GCPS) seniors have been named 2023 National Merit Scholarship Program semifinalists. The students from nine Gwinnett high schools are part of approximately 16,000 top students from across the nation who will now compete for the official National Merit Scholar title and thousands of dollars in scholarships that are awarded annually to graduating seniors.
The 2023 National Merit Semifinalists from GCPS are:
Archer HS
- Dean E. Putnam
Brookwood HS
- Anish A. Araque
- Farhan Baig
- Dylan G. Bruce
- Steven L. Li
- Niheer K. Patel
Gwinnett School of Mathematics, Science, And Technology
- Nathan M. Abraham
- Rayan Afsar
- Hrishikesh Bagalkote
- Utkarsh Borikar
- Brielle A. Bristow
- Henry H. Bui
- Joshua D. Caruso
- Matthew J. Choi
- John H. Doan
- Arica M. Gholston
- Rachel C. Han
- Dale M. Irving
- Bryan Kim
- Matthew H. Kim
- Sowmya Krithivasan
- Vishnu B. Kunnummal
- Jason J. Lai
- Haelin Lee
- Daniel Li
- Timothy Nguyen
- Avneesh Prabakar
- John Prewitt
- Isabella L. Sanchez
- Samarth Shridhar
- Abbygale J. Smith
- Joseph L. Townsend
- May-Jann Wong
- Joey T. Xie
- Jean Yu
- Angelina Zhang
Mill Creek HS
- Jaeheon Shim
- Phoebe Sophia Yoon
Norcross HS
- Nina A. Ballerstedt
- Dylan T. Christensen
- Jordan A. Katz
- Logan R. Lewis
- Holden P. Thomas
- Jonah Wu
- Sean Zhong
North Gwinnett HS
- Suraj Chatoth
- Aryan P. Chokshi
- Romit Chunduri
- Alec N. Hance
- Claire B. Kim
- Seohyon Kim
- Yeji Kim
- Anand M. Krishnan
- Rachel A. Kwon
- Joey Lin
- Wyatt J. Moses
- Jin Namgoong
- Lucas D. Stancill
- Aditi Venkatesh
- Selena H. Wang
- Joseph S. Yoo
- Richard C. Zhou
Parkview HS
- Nafez Ahmmed
- Grace J. Liu
- Devika Sasi Menon
Peachtree Ridge HS
- Aahil Z. Lakhani
- Vivian T. Vu
- Katharine Y. Wang
- Vivian Zhang
Paul Duke Stem HS
- Nathan L. Chen
- Rohan Pai
These 71 Gwinnett students, part of the Class 2023, were chosen for this competitive process based on their college entrance exam scores. They are competing with other semifinalists from around the nation for some 7,250 National Merit scholarships, worth nearly $28 million.
Approximately 1.5 million students in more than 21,000 high schools entered the competition last school year as juniors by taking the 2021 Preliminary SAT/National Merit Scholarship Qualifying Test, which served as the initial screening for program entrants. The semifinalists named in the 2023 National Merit Scholarship Program are the highest scoring entrants in each state.
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. These academically talented students then compete to become finalists. That recognition is determined by looking at the student’s academic record, participation in school and community activities, demonstrated leadership abilities, and honors and awards received.
These students will compete for three types of National Merit Scholarships with winners for 2023 announced in four nationwide news releases beginning in April and concluding in July.