MVLA, SFHS, Pinewood Boast 58 National Merit Scholarship Semi-finalists

Almost three dozen students in the , 21 at and three at Pinewood School in Los Altos Hills have been selected at National Merit Scholarship Semi-Finalists, the organization announced Wednesday.

A list of names from each high school is below.

National Merit Scholarship Corporation shared the names of 16,000 high schoolers from across the nation and called them "academically talented high school seniors." Officials said 8,300 will be awarded  more than $34 million in scholarships next spring.

Semi-Finalists must fulfill several requirements for the next round of the competition and according to officials 90 percent of them will become Finalists. Half of the Finalists will be awarded the National Merit Scholar title.

Approximately 1.5 million juniors from 22,000 high schools nationwide entered the competition by taking the 2010 Preliminary SAT/National Merit Scholarship Qualifying Test.

The national Semi-Finalists–less than 1 percent of all U.S. high school seniors–represent the highest scoring students from each state.

Winners will be announced in four waves beginning in April and ending in July.

According to National Merit Scholarship Corporation, a not-for-profit institution financed by businesses and higher education institutions, next year's winners will join 283,000 "distinguished young people" who have earned the Merit Scholar title since 1955.

Congratulations students!

MOUNTAIN VIEW HIGH SCHOOL

Byrom, John S.
Chen, Catherine
Daetz, Bryan D.
Evans, Austin J.
Garachtchenko, Anna A.
Ho, Sophie H.
Hofen, Laura
Hulett, Reyna M.
Kim, Joseph J.
McCarthy, Max L.
Molas, Jared G.
Nag, Nikhil D.
Pendse, Ruchita
Perry, Dahlia M.
Runke, Alexander C.
Staatz, Kevin T.
Sullivan, Francis
Swasey, Charlotte A.
Wells, Sarah B.

LOS ALTOS HIGH SCHOOL

Ballin, Mya X.
Bhat, Saleil M.
Bush, Rewa C.
Cheng, Jessica
Childs, Marissa L.
Dow, Anny V.
Friend, Kevin
Hua, Vivian
Johnson, Audun L.
Kaftan, Tomer
Lai, Stephen
Mason, Adron E.
Orton, Matthew
Rajan, Nikita R.
Zellers, Rowan G.

PINEWOOD SCHOOL

Lampron-York, Amelia A.
Sartain, Elizabeth M.
Teo, Niuniu Z.

ST. FRANCIS HIGH SCHOOL

Chen, Grace S.
Chu, Tristan L.
Colford, John E.
Fiske, Elliot L.
Frakes, Melanie K.
Kalpathy, Jahnavi
Kong, Stefanie C.
Kwong, Kaitlin G.
Lu, Anita
Luo, Benjamin
Muralidharan, Madhavi
Pandian, Prithviraj P.

Rahman, Arifeen S.
Shannon, Alexandra L.
Sheu, Angela
Tran, Jonathan
Venkatesh, Shriya
Xiao, Daniel
Xiao, Minna
Yun, Catherine