East Cobb High-School Seniors Named National Merit Semifinalists

EAST COBB, GA — Fifty-eight high-school students from East Cobb County have been named semifinalists for a 2021 National Merit Scholarship.

The group is among about 16,000 high-school seniors nationwide who will go on to compete for National Merit scholarships worth more than $30 million to be offered next spring.

They are:

Lassiter High School: Victoria Dutkiewicz, Aidan Payne and William Shutt

Pope High School: Allison D. Gentry, Ryan J. Meredith, Greg K. Park and William G. Whitaker.

Sprayberry High School: Allison D. Mawn

The Walker School: Merrill Hart and Grace E. Sawyer

Walton High School: Sai Anoop Avunuri, Avi Balakirsky, Vedika Bhatnagar, Eric Brewster, Caroline Brooks, Tia Chacko, Jamison Clark, Emily Feren, Joseph Fisher, Cole Francis, Michael Fu, Nicholas Ge, Kathryn Gilk, Kamen Iliev, Alexander Krupp, Steven Liberman, Taneecia Natarajan Thirulokac, Aditya Palliyil, Emory Paul, Ronak Rana, Manuel Roglan, Shveta Shah, Banglue Wei, Grace Yan and Emily Yang

Wheeler High School: Vishaal Ganesh, Matthew L. House, Caroline K. Hugh, Anushka Jain, Vishaal Kareti, Dmitry A. Kozhanov, Oliver W. Long, David P. MacDonald, Samuel A. Maloney, Alexander P. Mena, Aryaman Mukherji, Michelle S. Namgoong, Nikki S. Nobari, Adetomi O. Oderinde, Elijah S. Reyelts, Manav K. Shah, Sanjay Srihari, Wesley J. Swanson, Aniketh S. Tadepalli, Rachel C. Toole, Erica L. Wu, Julie Yan and Charles M. Yu

More than 90 percent of the semifinalists are expected to become finalists, and more than half of those will win National Merit scholarships.

High-school juniors in about 21,000 high schools entered the program by taking the Preliminary SAT/National Merit Scholarship Qualifying Test (PSAT/NMSQT) in 2019.