More than 200 Orange County high school students just made a pretty selective list. They are National Merit semifinalists.

On Wednesday, Sept. 14, the Evanston, Ill.-based National Merit Scholarship Corporation announced the names of more than 16,000 semifinalists competing nationally for nearly $28 million in scholarships that will be awarded next spring.

Northwood High School in the Irvine Unified School District boasted the highest number of honorees in Orange County: 37. University High, also in Irvine, had the second highest number with 27 semifinalists.

Schools with at least 10 winners were: Troy High School in Fullerton, Beckman High in Tustin Unified, Valencia High in Placentia, Portola High in Irvine, and the Orange County School of the Arts in Santa Ana. While the vast majority of students hail from public schools, some study at private schools, including 10 semifinalists from Sage Hill in Newport Beach.

Nearly all the students nationwide, about 95%, are expected to reach the status of “finalist,” and about half will win, earning the elite title of “Merit Scholar.”

How did the students get this far? They aced the Preliminary SAT/National Merit Scholarship Qualifying Test, which served to initially screen students. The semifinalists represent less than 1% of U.S. high school seniors, according to the non-profit organization that runs the program and raises the scholarship money.

The next step for the semifinalists, and high school officials, is to submit a detailed scholarship application with information that includes students’ academic record, school and community activities, an essay, and SAT or ACT scores that back up their high scores in the preliminary exam.

Here’s the list of semifinalists and the schools they attend:

ALISO VIEJO

ALISO NIGUEL H.S.

Anuskiewicz, Dylan J.

Besmonte, Gianna Ysabel C.

Jiang, Chelsea

ANAHEIM

ACACIAWOOD SCHOOL

Lee, Cyrus D.

CANYON H. S.

Barretto, Sebastian N.

Chon, Jason S.

ESPERANZA H. S.

Park, Chessa M.

FAIRMONT PREPARATORY ACADEMY

Huynh, Khiet L.

Pietrzkowski, Pola V.

Zhao-Ye, Luke X.

SERVITE H. S.

Foy, Alexander B.

COSTA MESA

WALDORF SCHOOL OF ORANGE COUNTY

Roussanova, Elena L.

CYPRESS

CYPRESS H. S.

Chung, Samuel Y.

OXFORD ACADEMY

Choi, Eugene E.

Li, Erika C.

Li, Sarah R.

Luthra, Rahil

Mehta, Viren D.

FOUNTAIN VALLEY

FOUNTAIN VALLEY H. S.

Phan, Brandon

FULLERTON

SUNNY HILLS H. S.

De Leon, Emmaline D.

Kiker, Thaddaeus J.

Lee, Daniel J.

Sung, Sharon

Yang, Kate E.

TROY H. S.

Basu, Tanuj A.

Choi, Tyler Nicholas C.

Dorman, Mathew E.

Ha, Soojong

Han, Yonghoon B.

Her, Audrey L.

Lim, Matthew T.

Liu, Natasha N.

Liu, Yating

Mathur, Mahak

Ni, Brian

Qian, William R.

Qiu, Bowen

Ryu, Brian P.

Shim, Jay J.

Shum, Elizabeth C.

Son, Sean S.

Sung, Joseph M.

Wei, Ethan C.

Winberg, Emilee Grace

Yoon, Pearl Z.

GARDEN GROVE

BOLSA GRANDE H. S.

Palm, Catherine

GARDEN GROVE H. S.

Nguyen, Kandice U.

Nguyen, Uyen

PACIFICA H. S.

Do, Anne N.

Guardino, Caden

Morris, Cayden

HUNTINGTON BEACH

EDISON H. S.

Bellinger, Wyatt D.

Kaylani, Logan B.

Vo, Adam T.

HUNTINGTON BEACH H. S.

Colangelo, Mia Lauren

Hayashi, Cooper J.

Pham, Jacob Q.

Pham, Lucas D.

OCEAN VIEW H. S.

Bae, Haley Ann

IRVINE

ARNOLD O. BECKMAN H. S.

Chen, Jeremy H.

Chia, Grace W.

Garcia, Andres E.

Jiang, Ellie R.

Kim, Andrew

Kim, Eunvin V.

Kim, Jenna D.

Lu, Aidan T.

Lu, Gerald Y.

Prasad, Subhash J.

Suh, Andrew J.

Tam, Ian W.

CREAN LUTHERAN H. S.

Im, Elena C.

Lee, Min Young

IRVINE H. S.

Bawa, Mannat K.

Chen, Charline

Petrovich, Erik S.

Rapp, Eli W.

Song, Brian

Weng, Allen H.

Zhao, Alana M.

NORTHWOOD H. S.

Arabandi, Snigdha

Bhagavan, Rohan D.

Cai, Olivia Y.

Chan, Ellie W.

Chang, Eugenie F.

Cheng, Zixiu

Dai, Austin W.

Deshpande, Bhargavi A.

Foo, Anthony W.

Garneni, Tanvi

Grover, Shaina

Gupta, Khushi

Halder, Shayan

How, Rachel E.

Kamat, Aniket S.

Kang, Jonathan M.

Kunta, Srijan R.

Lee, Ze Xi Isaac

Lin, Alexander F.

Mow, Kai

Mundra, Aditi

Nabaeighahroudi, Saba

Pan, Elaine

Pandey, Samagra

Park, Jonghoon

Penrod, Andrew

Rawal, Divit

Rhee, Kenneth K.

Sohn, Kevin J.

Subbaraman, Satvik H.

Suresh, Arjun S.

Tak, Aiden J.

Talebi Dolouei, Ilia

Verma, Aditya

Wang, Annabel

Xie, Felix

Zhao, Karen G.

PORTOLA H. S.

Badescu, Sydney W.

Cheong, Brian S.

Ding, Cindy L.

Jong, Kyle E.

Ko, Lindsey Y.

Kumar, Satyajit M.

Nguyen, Thomas M.

Ruminson, Elisabeth A.

Sharma, Arnav

Shetty, Nihar N.

SAN JOAQUIN H. S.

Mittal, Aryan

TARBUT V’TORAH COMMUNITY DAY SCHOOL

Peddie, Adam

UNIVERSITY H. S.

Chen, Joshua M.

Fan, Benjamin A.

Gan, Benlin

Gong, Eric J.

Gunawardhana, Siara S.

Howery, Anabel

Jia, Wanqi

Ke, Andrew W.

Kimm, Alexander D.

Liao, Caitlyn A.

Min, Sarang

Peng, Max W.

Qin, Andre Y.

Sarkar, Adalmina K.

Shen, Aniyah X.

Su, June S.

Tassinari, Bree E.

Trinh, Minh H.

Wang, Ruijia

Wang, Samuel R.

Wang, Yihan

Wu, Katherine J.

Yang, Ashley

Yang, Haolin

Yates, Charles

Yeung, Amber W.

Zhou, Chunyi

WOODBRIDGE H. S.

Ferrero, Avery L.

Gov, Nathan M.

Kim, Brandon Y.

Peng, Amber L.

Suh, Nicholas P.

Sun, Deena Q.

LA HABRA

WHITTIER CHRISTIAN H. S.

Qiu, James

Song, Joseph

LAGUNA BEACH

LAGUNA BEACH H. S.

303 Machiraju, Sai K.

LAKE FOREST

EL TORO H. S.

Chi, Jonathan

LOS ALAMITOS

LOS ALAMITOS H. S.

Li, Tina M.

MISSION VIEJO

TRABUCO HILLS H. S.

Amineni, Harika

Stuvland, Claire D.

NEWPORT BEACH

CORONA DEL MAR H. S.

Bist, Aashvi N.

Bist, Marisa N.

Davis, Nicole J.

Long, Phillip N.

Pham, Tyler K.

Ward, Rachel M.

Zhou, Beyonce S.

NEWPORT HARBOR H. S.

Ancone, Gia G.

Wanlass, Kent A.

SAGE HILL SCHOOL

Ball, Ethan F.

Chung, Aidan

Du, Andy Q.

He, Elaine H.

Jin, Clifford

McNeill, Carson J.

Montgomery, Alexandra R.

Sun, Chenchen

Tseng, Celine

Xie, Xinyi

ORANGE

ORANGE LUTHERAN H. S.

Khanbeigi, Scarlett R.

PLACENTIA

EL DORADO H. S.

Ordonez, Livia R.

PARKVIEW H. S.

Kim, Tyler S.

VALENCIA H. S.

Bhalodia, Rohan R.

Chao, Jonathan W.

Chen, Dylan A.

Hong, Calvin

Ives, Camille E.

Jeon, Junhyuk

Kim, Joseph A.

Mo, Jason E.

Nguyen, Nathan T.

Pagaza, Brooklyn R.

Park, Mancheon

Simon, Ruth S.

RANCHO SANTA MARGARITA

SANTA MARGARITA CATHOLIC H. S.

Dorgan, Nicholas P.

Jones, Daniel M.

Kim, Sean

Lee, Katharine J.

Mahjoob, Darius R.

TESORO H. S.

Breuer, Zachary E.

Khajehmiraki, Fardean

Li, Yi-Ning J.

Lin, Melody M.

Royle, Mason D.

SAN JUAN CAPISTRANO

J SERRA CATHOLIC H. S.

Paulson, Sydney R.

SAN JUAN HILLS H. S.

Lau, Kent J.

Warner, Rachel D.

ST. MARGARET’S EPISCOPAL SCHOOL

Kenny, Alexander

Lee, Jonathan J.

Mai, Tina

Matthew, Kathryn K.

McGregor, Aili H.

Momtaz, Nadia

Varkevisser, Luciana

SANTA ANA

FOOTHILL H. S.

van der Hoek, Anne Marie

Werdel, Dylan K.

ORANGE COUNTY SCHOOL OF THE ARTS

Hodge, Ashley M.

Jang, Yoojung

Jo, Yoojin

Khauv, Amber K.

Li, Grant

Parigela, Sarah

Qin, Joshua Z.

Son, Clara J.

Wong, Allison C.

Wu, Evan

VILLA PARK

VILLA PARK H. S.

Kuo, Jordyn J.

YORBA LINDA

YORBA LINDA H. S.

Yang, Tyler B.

Yoon, Tanner S.

Click here for semifinalists in Los Angeles County or here for those in Riverside and San Bernardino counties.

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