District 86 Recognizes National Merit Finalists

Of 27 semifinalists, 24 students have achieved the distinction of being named National Merit Finalists. These students are now eligible for scholarships from the National Merit Scholarship Corporation. On Monday night, the District 86 school board recognized the two and 22 seniors for their accomplishments and presented them with certificates.

"Congratulations to the parents and family members for such an esteemed honor earned," said Superintendent Dr. Nicholas Wahl. "To achieve at this high level takes an enormous amount of commitment, dedication and sacrifice, and we're very proud of them."

The students who qualified for semifinalists did so from more than 1.5 million juniors nationwide who took the PSAT/NMSQT last fall. Only 16,000—fewer than one percent—of all high school seniors from throughout the United States, achieved the status of National Merit Semifinalist, and only 15,000 achieved the status of National Merit Finalist.

National Merit Finalists Class of 2012

Hinsdale South

Kevin Hu

Hinsdale Central

Jaya Agnihotri

Similolu Akintorin

Luke Chen

Meredith Christian

Robert Chun

Andrea Cladek

Gourisree Dharmavaram

Audrey Glaser

Ravi Gupta

Linda Jiang

Sneha Kasuganti

Rebecca Lewis

Theodore Owens

Arjun Reddy

Robert Scales

Joseph Shayani

Riley Strumillo

Claire Walker

Anna Walsh

Sichun Yang

Andy Zhou

Lydia Zoells