DASD seniors named National Merit Scholarship semifinalists

The National Merit Scholarship Corporation announced 36 Downingtown Area School District (DASD) students as semifinalists in the 68th annual National Merit Scholarship Program on September 14. The program honors individual students who show exceptional academic ability and potential for success in rigorous college studies.

Congratulations to the following DASD students for earning achievement as National Merit Scholarship semifinalists:

Downingtown High School East

Rishi R. Attarde
Ryan A. Gill
Yajat Gupta
Jinson A. Jimmy
Noah V. Judkins
Sai Pradhi Pakkerakari
William L. Pan
Rohan Patel
Rohan A. Pherwani
Nidhi Soma
Helen Zhu

Downingtown High School West

Rachit Bajpai
Matthew N. Beebe

Downingtown STEM Academy

Shreyas Annagiri
Devanshi Bhargava
Yasaswini Bommareddy
Geeta Cheeti
Yaduraj P. Choudhary
Leon X. Dang
Mark B. Fleckser
Melody F. Gao
Oak E. Hu
Taarana Jammula
Wafiza Julkipli
Aditya Kadiyala
Lineesha Kamana
Sidanth V. Menon
Tejasvi Pathipati
Aneesh S. Raparla
Timothy J. Salmon
Hitaesh Saravanarajan
Kashti Satish Umare
Madeleine R. Snyder
Shashwat Srivastava
Ruthvik H. Suryapalam
Charlotte Tan

Students entered the 2023 National Merit Scholarship Program by taking the 2021 Preliminary SAT/National Merit Scholarship Qualifying Test (PSAT/NMSQT®) during their junior year, which served as an initial screen of program entrants. 

Semifinalists must have an outstanding academic record throughout high school, be endorsed and recommended by a high school official, write an essay, and earn SAT® or ACT® scores that confirm the student’s earlier performance on the qualifying test. From over 16,000 semifinalists, more than 15,000 are expected to advance to the finalist level. All National Merit Scholarship winners will be selected from that group.

To learn more about the National Merit Scholarship Program, visit the National Merit Scholarship Corporation website.