The National Merit Scholarship Program (NMSP), a nonprofit organization that honors the scholastic achievements of high school juniors, has announced the nation’s semifinalists in the 2010 competition from those students who took the PSAT in 2008.

More than 1.5 million juniors in nearly 22,000 U.S. high schools took the PSAT; semifinalists represent less than one percent of those who took the exam. Most high schools boast only a few, if any, students who earn this prestigious recognition. Congratulations to Harker’s 50 semifinalists (29 percent of the class), now seniors:

Namrata Anand, Brandon Araki, Patrick Campbell, Victor Chen, Virginia Chen, Jeanette Chin, Da-Yoon Chung, Alexander Creasman, Samir Datta, Stefan Eckhardt, Nathaniel Edwards, Thomas Enzminger, Ryan Fan, Andy Fang, James Feng, Alex Fotland, Michael Gendotti, Alex Han, Kelsey Hilbrich, Christine Hsu, Eugene Huang, Sonya Huang, Noriko Ishisoko, Vishesh Jain, Carissa Jansen, Curran Kaushik, Sohini Khan, Yash Khandwala, Tiffany Kyi, Ruozi Li, Daisy Lin, Andrea Lincoln, Connie Lu, Rachel Luo, Christina Ma, Anjali Menon, Arjun Mody, Arthi Padmanabhan, Adam Perelman, Govind Raghunath, Mark Roh, Srikrishna Seeni, Rashmi Sharma, Haran Sivakumar, Elaine Song, Jeffrey Tan, Sarah Teplitsky, Margaret Woods, Kevin Zhang, Andrew Zhou

Most of these semifinalists who continue their academic excellence into their senior year, and who are endorsed by their principals and earn high scores on their SATs, will advance to the finalist round, where they have opportunities to win one of three types of merit scholarships: $2,500 National Merit-sponsored  scholarships awarded by state, approximately 1,000 scholarships sponsored by corporations and business organizations, and some 4,700 scholarships awarded by about 200 colleges and universities to students matriculating at those schools.