51 local students honored among top 1% in nation

Over 50 Dayton-area high school seniors representing 17 different schools were named National Merit Semifinalists this week because of their top scores on the Preliminary SAT exam.

More than 1.5 million juniors nationwide took the 2018 Preliminary SAT, but only 16,000 high scorers (about 1 percent) earned semifinalist status by being among the highest scorers in their state.

Each state’s number of semifinalists is proportional to its share of the nation’s students, according to the National Merit Scholarship Corporation (Ohio had 664). Because of that, the cutoff score to be a semifinalist varies from state to state.

Semifinalists will be eligible for scholarships later this year through the National Merit Scholarship Corporation. Numerous other students who just missed the semifinalist cutoff, but scored among the top 3 percent of students nationally are named National Merit Commended Students.

Locally, Centerville High School had 12 semifinalists, while Oakwood and Springboro high schools each had at least a half-dozen. The National Merit Scholarship Program emphasizes that the results recognize individual excellence, and do not measure the effectiveness of education in any school or state.

Here are the local semifinalists:

Alter: Elizabeth Jasek, Charlotte Kunesh, Sara LiBrandi, Peter Schimpf

Beavercreek: Alex Le, Luke Lunday, Jodie Pierce, Eileen Yang

Bellbrook: Andrew Russell

Centerville: Deklin Caban, Aadesh Chordia, Fawaz Ghouse, Anjali Goel, Victoria Haller, Jerrick Liu, Sherefuddin Pracha, Rohith Revan, Chathuni Seneviratne, Simran Surana, Tairan Zhang, William Zhang

Chaminade Julienne: John Huffman

Dayton Regional STEM School: Ethan Bolt, Trenton Nalls

Dominion Academy: Jenna Nahhas

Fairmont: Christian Denault

Fenwick: Gareth Fultz, Jake Gallagher, Jacob Short, Davis Zearley

Homeschool: Joseph Piroch

Lebanon: Logan Moore

Miami East: Levi Marcum

Miami Valley School: John Groger, Neil Sawh

Oakwood: David Cai, Sydney Hardern, Ryder Kemper, Noah Kingston, Richard Roediger, Elizabeth Vaughn, Aviva Young

Springboro: Adam Anspach, Alexander Berardi, Ryan Lin, Karoline Shellhause, Eva Singh, Carly Titus

Tippecanoe: Caden Beam

Troy Christian: Nathan Waltz

Waynesville: Brandon Blair