Two Arlington students and others from the Mid-South recently joined the ranks of the nation’s top students as the National Merit Scholarship Program named its semi-finalists last week.
The Arlington High School students who made the prestigious list are Taylor A. Dempsey and Luke M. Durkee.
Students on the list also represented schools in Collierville, Cordova, Eads, Germantown and Memphis.
Among local private schools, Briarcrest Christian had the most students. Annie Barber, Rachel Collins, Lilac Ding, Matthew Stuart and Barrett Tillman were all named semifinalists.
Catherine Crowe, Alyssa Denegri and Isabelle Verret were announced as semi-finalists from St. Benedict at Auburndale.
Representing Evangelical Christian School is Hadassah Betapudi.
These are among the top 1 percent of students finishing as semi-finalists in the 63rd annual National Merit Scholarship Program. They have the opportunity to advance in the competition for some 7,500 National Merit Scholarships.
Finalists will be announced in the spring. These students are all AP and Honors students in a rigorous course of study.
About 1.6 million juniors in more than 22,000 high schools entered the 2018 National Merit Scholarship Program by taking the 2016 Preliminary SAT/National Merit Scholarship Qualifying Test last fall.
The nationwide pool of semi-finalists includes the highest scoring entrants in each state. These academically talented high school seniors have an opportunity to continue in the competition for scholarships worth more than $32 million.
Also see our complete list of Semifinalists in the rest of Shelby County and throughout Tennessee.
