Ten of 24 National Merit Semifinalists Attend Parkway Central High School

Parkway School District's 24 high school seniors named semifinalists Wednesday will be in academic competition for National Merit Scholarships totaling more than $34 million, district officials said.

Of the district's 24 semifinalists, 10 students attend Parkway Central.

(10) (in alphabetical order)

• Dylan J. Adams
• Thomas L. Hack
• Shawn Z. He
• David Huang
• Katherine S. Ihnat
• Meagan A. McKinstry
• Joshua H. Mo
• Lee Remi
• Carl A. Wallach
• Dennis X. Zhu

The 14 other winners are spread among the district's three other high schools. Parkway schools draw students from many surrounding communities, not only Chesterfield.

(3): Manali P. Gokhale, Adrienne M. Hunt, Timothy R. Tai.

(5): Dushyant Bhatnagar, Stefanie T. Shahan, Connie X. Shen, Heather D. Wilson, Jeffrey Zhao.

(6): Keerthi Bandi, Will S. Gant, Andrew D. Kuehnle, Kimberly L. Lister, Adam B. Manders, James Wang.

The students will learn in spring 2012 whether they have won one of the 8,300 scholarships that pay out toward college.

About 90 percent of semifinalists are expected to attain finalist standing, and approximately half of the finalists win a National Merit Scholarship and Merit Scholar title.

The nationwide pool of semifinalists represents less than 1 percent of U.S. high school seniors.

Each finalist competes for one of 2,500 scholarships worth $2,500, awarded by state.

Another 1,000 corporate-sponsored scholarships go out to those who meet specific criteria—such as children of the company's employees or residents of communities where plants or offices are located.

Then, another 200 colleges and universities typically finance about 4,800 scholarship for finalists who attend their schools.

National Merit Scholarship winners will be announced in four groups, beginning in April and concluding in July. Those named will join more than 283,000 who have gone before them.

About 1.5 million juniors in 22,000 high schools begin the path to National Merit Scholar by taking standardized tests Preliminary SAT/National Merit Scholarship Qualifying Test (PSAT/NMSQT.)

This information is from Parkway District offices and www.nationalmerit.org