Lots o National Merit Smarties at Rye High

(PHOTO: Rye High School Principal Patricia Taylor with National Merit Semifinalists Christopher Julian, William Colwell, Julia Donovan and Su-Lynn Kok.)

The National Merit® Scholarship Corporation announced the names of the approximately 16,000 Semifinalists in its National Merit® Scholarship program, and four of them are from Rye High School. The Semifinalists are the highest-scoring entrants from each state in the country, and represent less than one percent of U.S. high school seniors.

The Corporation announced the names of National Merit® Commended Students shortly thereafter. Rye High School has 26 Commended Students. Commended Students place in the top five percent of the approximately 1.5 million students who took the 2014 PSAT exam.

(PHOTO: National Merit Commended Students pictured with Patty Taylor and Jim O'Hara, Guidance Head.)

“I want to extend my congratulations to these 30 outstanding students and to High School Principal Patricia Taylor,” said Superintendent of Schools Frank Alvarez. “They truly are among the best and the brightest in the country. Their achievement represents a great deal of hard work and dedication, not only by the students themselves, but by their parents, their teachers and the Rye City School District community at large. It’s something we can all be proud of.”

Rye High School Principal Patricia Taylor added, “I am extremely proud of these 30 students and all of the students in our 2016 class. The very high number of National Merit® Commended Students this year is indicative of the excellence of the class as a whole.”

Students qualify for the program by taking the Preliminary SAT/National Merit® Scholarship Qualifying Test (PSAT/NMSQT®) in the spring of their junior year. 

The 2015-16 National Merit® Scholarship Semifinalists from Rye High School are:

William Colwell

Julia Donovan

Christopher Julian

Su-Lynn Kok

The 2015-16 National Merit® Commended Scholars from Rye High School are:

Evangelia Alexopoulos

Madeline Johnson

Ryan Anderson

Christopher Karpovich

Mihir Bala

Grant Keith

Nicholas Berger

Zichen Liu

Elizabeth Brett

Taylor Maurer

Ryan Ciardiello

Thomas Mechem

Madeline Eck

Dain Monaghan

Quinn Fahey

Owen Moore

Charles Flynn

Elizabeth Moses

Franklin Goldszer

Luke Murphy

Dominic Guarnieri

Sakiko Nishida

Isabelle Hentschel

Deirdre Potter

Joshua Johnson

Kana White

For more information, visit the National Merit Scholarship Corporation.