Woodlands students named semifinalists for National Merit Scholarship

The names of The Woodlands students who have qualified as semifinalists in the 2013 National Merit Scholarship Program have been released.

The students are some of approximately 16,000 semifinalists in the 58th annual program.

Students will now have the opportunity to advance to the final round, competing for one of 8,300 National Merit Scholarships to be awarded in spring 2013.

Semifinalists must fulfill several requirements to advance to the level of finalist. Approximately 90 percent of students are expected to attain the finalist standing, with more than half winning scholarships.

The Preliminary SAT and National Merit Scholarship Qualifying Test serves as the initial screening, which current semifinalists took in 2011 as high school juniors.

The semifinalists represent less than 1 percent of high school seniors in the United States and are the highest-scoring entrants in the state.

Semifinalists from John Cooper School are Alexander J. Alexander, Arielle C. Coughlin, Kathryn A. Donahoo, Sahem A. Faruqi, Madison P. Franks, Max B. Granat, Stanton Kent, David M. Taylor, Yarlini Vipulanandan and Eric C. Yuan.

Semifinalists from The Woodlands College Park High School are Jaijie Chen, Eric A. Fris, Daniel A. Latypov, Anita Liu, Shu Liu, Casey A. Nolan, Patrick Q. Sullivan, Anne C. Wageman and Aundrea K. Westfall.

Semifinalists from The Woodlands High School are Olivia L. Brown, Nicholas Campalans, Kristen E. Hagan, Emily M. Johnson, Samuel Z. Konopczynski, Alexander M. McCauley, Timothy B. Nysetvold, David J. Schack and Rowan S. Walrath.