Dozens of Del Mar-Carmel Valley Seniors Named National Merit Semifinalists

By Nicole Mooradian

Dozens of Del Mar-Carmel Valley seniors have been named 2013 National Merit Semifinalists, the nonprofit National Merit Scholarship Corporation announced Wednesday in a news release.

The students are among about 16,000 semifinalists nationally in the 59th annual National Merit Scholarship Program.

The students will compete for about 8,300 scholarships worth more than a total of $32 million. About 90 percent of the semifinalists are expected to make it to the finals; just more than half of the finalists will win a scholarship.

The students will be judged by their scores on standardized tests, their grades, an essay and extracurricular activities.

Semifinalists were determined by their scores on the 2012 Preliminary SAT/National Merit Scholarship Qualifying Test, which they took as 11th graders. Only those who scored in the top 1 percent of their state were named semifinalists.

About 1.5 million high school juniors took the PSAT/NMSQT last year.

The National Merit Scholarship Corporation was established in 1955 to conduct the National Merit Scholarship Program, according to a news release from the nonprofit organization. The scholarships are provided by the organization and about 440 businesses and educational institutions.

Canyon Crest Academy

• Stephen Ai
• Rachel Berman
• Amy Chang
• Ashley Chen
• Christine Chen
• Eric Chen
• Kevin Cherng
• Timothy CHu
• Sara D'Souza
• Meg Farinsky
• Kay Foos
• Dhaval Gajiwala
• Jeffrey Gao
• Paolo Gentili
• Callum Goulding
• Kyle Grozen
• Stephanie Guo
• Brendan Kahn
• Syed Kazmi
• Scott Kazmierowicz
• Amanda Ke
• Devyn Krevat
• Anita Kulkarni
• Alvin Liang
• Eric Lin
• Joseph Lin
• Catherine Nguyen
• Carly Rasmussen
• Nicole Rasquinha
• Oliver Ren
• Kathryn Stevens
• Kelsey Williams
• Catherine Wu
• Alice Xie
• Sophia Yang
• Derek Yen
• Brandon Zeng

• Benjamin Lampe

—City News Service and Patch Field Editor Shauntel Lowe contributed to this report.