Williamsville Central School District

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Williamsville Seniors Named 2020 National Merit Scholarship Semifinalists

Twelve Williamsville students are semifinalists in the 2020 National Merit Scholarship program. These talented seniors from Williamsville South, North, and East high schools will have an opportunity to continue in the competition for 7,500 National Merit Scholarships worth more than $32 million next spring. The Williamsville Central School District is proud to announce its 2020 National Merit Scholarship semifinalists:

From Williamsville South, Austin Dunn; from Williamsville North, Kevin Martin III, Nicholas Masi, Emily Olearczyk, Sayantika Roy, and Pranav Setlur; and from Williamsville East, Jennie An, Sydney Kim, Rachel Lane, Megha Pratapwar, Nina Raj, and Freda Su. 

Over 1.5 million juniors from about 21,000 high schools entered the 2020 National Merit Scholarship Program by taking the 2018 Preliminary SAT/National Merit Scholarship Qualifying Test, which serves as the initial screen for program entrants. The nationwide pool of semifinalists represents less than one percent of U.S. high school seniors. Semifinalists must fulfill several requirements to advance to the finalist level of competition. About 90 percent of the semifinalists are expected to attain finalist standing, and about half of the finalists will win a National Merit Scholarship.

In addition, 25 Williamsville CSD students were named Commended Students in the 2020 National Merit Scholarship Program. Although they will not continue in the scholarship competition, these students demonstrated exceptional academic promise, placing among the top 50,000 scorers nationwide. Congratulations to the district's Commended Students:

From Williamsville South, Morgan Schaefer and Mazzy Scherer; from Williamsville North, Andrew Krysiak, Jacob Okulewicz, Emma Radel, Dania Senussi, Arnav Shah, and Jacob Swihart; and from Williamsville East, Skye Campo, Jeffrey Chen, Neel Cheruvu, Laura Kaplan, Jaiha Lee, Suzie Lee, Owen Lewis, Daniel Purizhansky, Matthew Rubino, Charles Schatmeyer, Puja Shah, Grace Speller, Jane Tang, Hannah Wallenfels, Kevin Wang, Jacob Ward, and Nicole Xu.