The National Merit Scholarship Corporation (NMSC) announced the semifinalists in the 2025 competition Wednesday. 158 Montgomery County students, in both public and independent schools, were named National Merit semifinalists. They will now go on to compete nationally for scholarships awarded in the spring.
140 Montgomery County Public Schools (MCPS) and 17 independent school students were named National Merit semifinalists. One semifinalist is homeschooled.
Semifinalists were selected from among high school juniors who were top scorers on the 2023 PSAT/National Merit Scholarship Qualifying Test. More than 16,000 semifinalists across the nation will be considered for advancement to the finalist stage of the competition. More than 15,000 are expected to advance to the Finalist level and will be notified in February.
Finalists will be considered for three types of National Merit Scholarships in the spring of 2025: $2,500 National Merit scholarships, additional corporate-sponsored scholarships, and college/university-sponsored scholarships.
Public School National Merit Semifinalists
The public schools with the most semifinalists are Montgomery Blair (42), Richard Montgomery (24), Poolesville (21), Walter Johnson (15), Winston Churchill (10) and Walt Whitman (10).
The MCPS semifinalists come from 15 high schools, including Bethesda-Chevy Chase, Montgomery Blair, James Hubert Black, Winston Churchill, Clarksburg, Walter Johnson Colonel Zadok Magruder, Richard Montgomery, Northwest, Poolesville, Quince Orchard, Sherwood, Wheaton, Walt Whitman, and Thomas S. Wootton.
In 2024, 186 County students were named National Merit semifinalists.
The MCPS semifinalists are:
Bethesda-Chevy Chase High School
Chan-Hyong Chung
Samuel Mallen
Isabel Miller
Quinn Parker
Evelyn Trackman
Montgomery Blair High School
Asher Anantham
Laila Andelman
Dhruva Arun
Reetika Banerjee
Nikhita Bhatt
Ian Campbell
Alexander Chhoeu
Yanet Dessale
Michelle Gao
Evelyn Goldin
Meru Gopalan
Claire Gunthert
Ivy Guo
Olivia Guo
Sabine Kitenge
Kripa Krishnan
Shriya Krishnan
Navek Leonard
Charlotte Li
Yunyi Ling
Arnav Nagaich
Matthew Nam
Solange Neuman
Katherine Patrabansh
Dakota Pippins
Milo Rector
Shriyan Reyya
Dylan Schenker
Tiancheng Shao
Jamil Sheikh
Vera Singh
Valerie Song
Henry Stein
Tejusvi Vijay
Katherine Wang
Daniel Wu
George Xie
Nathan Yap
Ricky Ye
Yun Yeung
Hannah You
Jason Youm
Michael Zenick
Stephen Zhang
Eric Zou
James Hubert Blake High School
Nathan Suddleson
Winston Churchill High School
Noor Aly
Emilio B. Difilippantonio
Ananya Gautam
Michael Z. Jiang
Dev P. Merchia
Ranbir Narula
Sofia C. Noguera
Alex Song
Tyler X. Song
David M. Yao
Clarksburg High School
Edwin Cho
Walter Johnson High School
Liam F. Barrett
Owen Cumblidge
Miram Elag
Mia A. Halper
Aiden L. Holdren
Jonathan P. Lew
Eleanor E. Miller
Anna Mockel
Gokce B. Onal
Seyun Park
John D. Peppelman
Zachary P. Roman
Riddhi M. Sadhanala
Pearl J. Shelton
Joselyn A. Toyoda
Colonel Zadok Magruder High School
Agastya A. Haswar
Richard Montgomery High School
Samuel Carignani
Julia Chang
Chaiwey Chen
Rohit Das
Adam Dubelman
Sujit Hegde
Kaixin Hou
Andrew Jiang
Josiah Main
Yash Maniar
Adam Poje
Vihaan Rathi
Saif Salchak
Johnny Sheng
Robert Suettinger
David Sy
Anjana Tangirala
Logan Tannenbaum
Christopher Tu
Jessica Wang
Leon Wang
John Wingfield
Amy Ye
Ivan Zhang
Caroline Zhou
Northwest High School
Krishay P. Iyer
Poolesville High School
Alexander J. Aniya
Bram B. Graver
Jaden E. Hou
Eric Z. Huang
Sophia Liu
Asher Lyons
Swarnabh S. Maharjan
Yash S. Pandit
Anderson Preis
Ethan Z. Qian
Umme Hani Saafan
Shreyas Sasanakoti
Ann Sha
Tate Stromgren
Karthik S. Vedula
Veronica Wang
Caitlin E. Woodward
Saahas Yaddula
Sylvia C. Yu
Bryan R. Yung
Annie Zhao
Quince Orchard High School
Mark Lin
Steven Wang
Sherwood High School
Jibran Jafri
Wheaton High School
Ishara S. Rajapakse
Kenny V. Tran
Walt Whitman High School
Dresden Benke
Yonald Chery
Calvin Kim
Keira Lee
Samantha Lin
Evan Liu
Shreya Ohri
Vivian Ooi
Louis Pohle
Evan Wu
Thomas S. Wootton High School
Diya Khetan
Jiwon Kim
Kevin Luo
Stuti Patil
Kent Zhang
Independent School National Merit Semifinalists
There are 50 independent high schools serving 15,370 students in Montgomery County, according to the Private School Review. Seventeen students in 10 independent high schools were named NMSC semifinalists.
The 10 independent schools with semi-finalists are the Georgetown Preparatory School, Our Lady of Good Counsel High School, Heights School, Holton-Arms School, Landon School, Living Grace Christian School, Sandy Spring Friends School, Charles E. Smith Jewish Day School, Washington Waldorf, and Yeshiva of Greater Washington.
The semifinalists attending an independent high school are:
Georgetown Preparatory School
Hye-Sung Kim
Nicholas Quianzon
Zhenyu Wang
Our Lady of Good Counsel High School
Jace Alexander
Jacob Neff
Heights School
Theodore M. Iandoli
Holton-Arms School
Sarah Dicker
Grace Ding
Sonia Husain
Claire Shannon
Isabella Turnowski-New
Landon School
Matthew Guo
Living Grace Christian School
Michael E. Avers
Sandy Spring Friends School
Neil Diller
Charles E. Smith Jewish Day School
Azaria Hileman-Shashoua
Washington Waldorf School
Sebastian Chang-Leung
Yeshiva of Greater Washington
Chaim Schnittman
And one semifinalist, Ariana Hess is homeschooled.
