22 NA Students National Merit Scholarship Semifinalists

McCANDLESS, PA - Twenty-two North Allegheny High School students have been named semifinalists for the 2020 National Merit Scholarship Program.

The semifinalists were announced on Wednesday, and include around 16,000 high school seniors that will go on to compete for the scholarships offered next spring. According to a National Merit
Scholarship Program press advisory, more than 90 percent of the semifinalists will be named as finalists for the scholarship. Of those finalists, about half will win a scholarship.

More than 1.5 million students applied for the highly competitive scholarship and the semi-finalists represent less than 1 percent of all high-school seniors in the U.S. For each state, the number of semi-finalists is proportional to that state's percentage of the total graduating seniors in the country, officials explained.

The North Allegheny semifinalists are:

• Sari Abu Hamad.

• David Ban.

• Jiangfeng Chu.

• Ashley Chung.

• Noah Dibiasi.

• Nishka Edlabadkar.

• Katherine Gao.

• Teresa Huang.

• Richard Jensen.

• Andrew Johnson.

• Grace Lee.

• Nicholas Marcenelle Perez.

• Nicole McGaa.

• Daphne Nie.

• Anchey Peng.

• Rebekah Rest.

• Katherine Sabak.

• Praneel Undavali.

• Esha Vaidya.

• Hanna Wang.

• Joshua Zhou.

The National Merit Scholarship Program is an academic competition for recognition and scholarships that began in 1955, according to the organization's website. High school students enter the National Merit Program by taking the Preliminary SAT/National Merit Scholarship
Qualifying Test — which serves as an initial screen of approximately 1.6 million entrants each year — and by meeting published program entry and participation requirements.