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October 12, 2018—Twenty-three members of the Shaker Heights High School Class of 2019 have been named Semifinalists and Commended Students in the National Merit Scholarship Program. 

This year's National Merit Semifinalists from Shaker are Justin Bai, Elizabeth Brown, Emet Celeste-Cohen, Henry Crampton-Hays, Fenner Dreyfuss-Wells, Lia Gomez-Perez, Erenalp Kahriman, Isabel Levin, Kaitlin Nordstrom, Leo Schirokauer, Joshua Silver and Eli Soto-Schwartz. These students will have the opportunity to continue in the competition for National Merit Scholarship awards that will be offered next spring, and will be candidates for other scholarships, as well. Last year, nine Shaker Heights High School students were named Semifinalists. 

 

Eleven members of the Class of 2019 were named Commended Students. They are: Nikhila Balasubramaniam, Melis Baltan-Brunet, Hannah Braun, Connor Covert, Audrey Himes, Olivia La Rue, Jacob Lehner, Charlotte Lo, Daniel Szoke, Rachel Weisman and Lyle Yost.

Among Ohio’s more than 900 public high schools, only eight had more National Merit Semifinalists than Shaker Heights High School. Our student group represented the second-highest number of National Merit Semifinalists from any public high school in Northeast Ohio, earning more semifinalist recognitions than Bay Village, Beachwood, Chagrin Falls, Lakewood, Mentor, Orange, Rocky River and Westlake high schools.

Nationwide, 16,000 National Merit Semifinalists have been designated from approximately 1.6 million program entrants in more than 22,000 high schools. Representing less than 1 percent of the country’s high school seniors, Semifinalists are in the state's highest-scoring students on the 2017 Preliminary SAT/National Merit Scholarship Qualifying Test (PSAT/NMSQT).

These scholastically talented seniors are considered top candidates for admission to the most selective colleges. National Merit Scholarship winners of 2019 will be announced in four nationwide news releases beginning in April 2019 and concluding July 2019.