September 15, 2021—Seventeen members of the Shaker Heights High School Class of 2022 have been named Semifinalists and fifteen have been named Commended Students in the 67th annual National Merit Scholarship Program.
This year's National Merit Semifinalists from Shaker are Nichele Abeyesundere, Kjell Aspelin, Grace Bourdrez, Jonathan Brinkley, Mia Compton-Engle, Jacob Feinleib, Caroline Lamb, Avery Maytin, Tyler Nordstrom, Benjamin Rakow, River Sadowsky, Luca Sakiewicz, Benjamin Schattinger, Somiya Schirokauer, Katerina Steiber, Julia Strasburg and Eva Xiao. 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.
Our student group of Semifinalists represented the second-highest number of National Merit Semifinalists among public schools in Northeast Ohio and the fourth-highest in the state. It is also the highest number of Semifinalists from Shaker Heights High School since 2016.
Nationwide, 16,000 National Merit Semifinalists have been designated from approximately 1.5 million program entrants in more than 21,000 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 2020 Preliminary SAT/National Merit Scholarship Qualifying Test (PSAT/NMSQT).
This year's Commended Students from Shaker are Agatha Augustine, Owen Bang, Chethan Chandra, William Corbin, Ruby Cover, Reilly Dean, Samuel Grube, Henry Harte, Dominic Mayhew, Keegan Polatz, Aziza Reddy, Martina Richter, Ryan Shane, Colt Simonelli and James Stewart.
Commended Students are recognized for the exceptional academic promise demonstrated by their performance on the PSAT. Nationwide, 34,000 students receive this honor.
These scholastically talented seniors are considered top candidates for admission to the most selective colleges. National Merit Scholarship winners of 2022 will be announced in four nationwide news releases beginning in April 2022 and concluding July 2022.
Congratulations to these students!