International Academy Home to 34 National Merit Scholarship Semi-finalists

Roughly 1.5 million high school juniors representing more than 22,000 schools across the country entered the 2013-14 National Merit Scholarship Program by taking the 2012 Preliminary SAT/National Merit Scholarship Qualifying Test last year. The nationwide list of Semi-finalists, comprised of less than one percent of American high school seniors, includes the highest scorers in every state.

More than 30 students at the International Academy in Bloomfield Hills made the prestigious list recently released by the National Merit Scholarship Corporation. They remain eligible for nearly 8,000 nationwide scholarships valued at roughly $35 million.

To become a finalist, the students must submit a detailed application that focuses on academics, participation in school and community activities, demonstrations of leadership, and other honors received, a news release stated. Finalists will be determined in February, and winners will be announced between April and July.

Here are this year's semi-finalists:

Arshon Afrakhteh

Siba Alzohaili

Guangning An

Tejeshwar Bawa

Ryan Branch

Surya Chennupati

Amy Chern

Hannah Diehl

Allen Du

Arkadiy Frasinich

Vikrant Garg

Derek Guo

Melinda Hammond

Emma Hays

Alvine Juline

Nitin Kumar

Shirley Lu

Kaeley McGrane

Dylan McGuire

Ryan Michalec

Ankit Naik

Rajmund Niwinski

Parth Oak

Vinai Reddy

Dean Ryan

Priya Sankaran

Steven Schmatz

Vivek Shankar

Marvin Shih

Anirudh Sridhar

Stacy Tsai

Konrad Walek

Yixi Wang

Alexa Wisniarek