40 New Trier Seniors Named National Merit Semifinalists

Forty members of New Trier Township High School's senior class were named Wednesday as semifinalists in the National Merit Scholarship Program, according to the high school.

Based on their scores on the 2009 Preliminary SAT/National Merit Qualifying Test (PSAT/NMQT), scores on the SAT college entrance exam, high academic achievement and recommendation from the principal, the students are qualified to compete for 8,400 National Merit Scholarships, worth more than $36 million.

About 16,000 students were named semifinalists this year out of 1.5 million teenagers who entered the program by taking the PSAT/NMQT last fall. In Illinois, 686 students qualified for the semifinalist designation. While the National Merit Scholarship Corporation does not release the numbers of semifinalists at individual schools, the 686 Illinois semifinalists came from 156 high schools, according to Katie Williamsen, public information coordinator.

This year, the selection index score on the PSAT/NMQT for semifinalists was 214, the same index score for the Class of 2010. Last year, 31 seniors at the school made the cut, according to a press release.

Here is a list of the 2011 National Merit semifinalists:

Elaad Applebaum, Chesley Berlinghof, Drew Bobesink, Mara Farcasanu, Theodore Gabrielides, Katie Gavin, Elizabeth Glerum, Mengsha Gong, Jamie Gross, Jake Hamburger, Nicole Hamilton, Zoe Hawks, George Hyun, Bianca Jackson, William Kamin, Katherine Knight, Hyun Lee, Daniel Light, Maayan Malter, Judson Martin, Andrew D. Miller, Nathaniel J. Miller, Jonathan Nazari, Zachary Popp, Hemanth Potluri, Isa Qasim, Domenic Rizzolo, Samuel Rodman, Shirley Roitberg, Abigail Schmitt, Sarah Schultz, Kevin Shain, Junjie Shangguan, Julia Stoller, Aaron Suiter, Alexandra Swift, Emily Turner, Konrad Von Moltke, David Walchak and Bibi Zou.