Here are the Orange County students who are 2025 National Merit Scholarship semifinalists – Orange County Register

The National Merit Scholarship Program has announced its 2025 semifinalists in Orange County.

More than 16,000 high school seniors were selected across the nation to move forward in the running for the nearly $26 million the National Merit program will award in scholarships in the spring.

Next, the students will need to meet

There are a number of requirements the students will need to meet to compete for the scholarships, including submitting a detailed application, writing an essay and showing an “outstanding academic record” and leadership and service in the community. The nonprofit said about 95% are expected to advance to being finalists for the 6,870 scholarships that will be awarded in the spring.

The National Merit program is nearly 70 years old.

Here are the Orange County high school students named semifinalists according to this year’s announced list:

Aliso Viejo

Aliso Niguel High

Danielle Halphide

Jackson Milby

Noah Selvan

Ian Song

Anaheim

Canyon High

Rohan Hassain

Alexandr Kim

Esperanza High

Matthew Hoang

Shivali Sharma

Fairmont Prep

Francis Hollis

Noelle Kim

Siheon Lee

Cheuk Fu Ian Pau

Ava Shvartsman

Homeschool/online school

Evangeline Eng

Brea

Brea Olina High

Dominic M. Lee

Cypress

Homeschool/online school

Allison Kim

Oxford Academy

Emily Le

Janice D. Lee

Joseph J. Lee

Khanh K. Nguyen

Veronica Y. Shao

Rachel J. Yoon

Read also: See the 2024 National Merit semifinalists here.

Dana Point

Dana Hills High

Jack A. Miller

Fountain Valley

Fountain Valley High

Benjamin Nguyen

Jaquelyn Nguyen

Fullerton

Fullerton Union High

Bonnie Lynch

Sunny Hills High

Kiheon Kim

Celerina Lee

Matthew Ma

Zayne Shah

Troy High

Iman H. Babiker

Zoey C. Bahng

Addison B. Chan

Evan Y. Chen

Eric W. Choi

Stephen Eng

Elizabeth J. Fu

Andrew N. Her

Tristan L. Hwang

Eunjun Jang

Soham P. Kulkarni

Nathan J. Lim

Sophia L. Liu

Xiyue Ma

Bhavna Malladi

Bianca Z. Naranjo

Noah T. Nguyen

Justin K. Park

Sara M. Patel

Aditya R. Peddi

Derek Y. Peng

Anya Pramanick

Victoria M. Rhee

Cloris F. Shi

Jack R. Simmonds

Diya Sreedhar

Matthew Y. Takagi

Andrew W. Tsai

Ethan H. Wang

Stanley M. Wang

Patricia Q. Wu

Yuqi Yang

Zhuoran Zhao

Jacqueline R. Zhou

Garden Grove

Bolsa Grande High

Jaydon H. Vu

Pacifica High

Isaac T. Chikami

Rancho Alamitos High

Minh T. Nguyen

Huntington Beach

Huntington Beach High

Dylan Yong

Marina High

Nicholas R. Ridout

Irvine

Beckman High

Madeleine Chang

Swaroop Kamble

Tyler Ly

Rachel Nazareth

Andy Nguyen

Luke Owyang

Srishti Pradhan

Gabrielle Wang

Crean Lutheran High

Luke Goddard

Ethan Lai

Matthew Paek

Leo Ranalli

Irvine High

Ishaan Gaikwad

Madilyn Judd

Lauren C. Lai

Ryan J. Lee

Emily Liu

Sumanth Sriram

Northwood High

Shreya Aithal

Kelly K. Au

Aadya Batra

Daniel Chai

Yufei Chen

Shao-Yuan Chung

Arnav Dhar

Jocelyn Q. Dinh

Vidisha Dutta

Neil Godse

Riya Gupta

Cole L. Haydon

Viraj H. Kadakia

Nathan Kang

Jasmine T. Le

Minseo Lim

Michael Lin

Nirav Michelsen

Christine Y. Nam

Ethan H. Pan

Stanley Suen

Jinsi Wang

Jayden L. Wong

Sophia J. Yang

Portola High

Gregory Y. Bank

Jongmin Chae

Vivian L. Chang

Luke D. Chau

Kyle Y. He

Tiffany Kim

Eric Y. Lee

Vivian M. Lu

Mourya Nunna

Aditi A. Salunkhe

Ruhi V. Samudra

NIrmit Shah

Jaehun Shin

Luke H. Shin

Leyu Xie

Zijing Xu

Aarnav Yedia

Minglin Zhang

University High

Blake I. Baek

Urmila Barathan

Aaron Chao

Kenneth Chen

Yufei Chen

Sophia Y. Dai

Quinne S. Davis

Victoria W. Fang

Abel C. George

Miles K. Hexun

Sky Jafar

Niklaus Jafary

Annie Jiang

Ashaley Jiang

David Y. Kim

Jed Kim-Ozaeta

Amy R. Lantz

Handersen P. Lee

Victor G. Li

Ocean K. Liauw

Jingxuan Liu

Aleksandr Naganov

Anugrah Naranatt

Daniel E. Niktash

Jayden C. Peng

Kayla N. Piedad

Agam S. Randhawa

Jonathan D. Szeto

Ryan C. Villadelgado

Claire C. Wen

David Z. Zhang

Zhe Zheng

Evan Zhong

Woodbridge High

Matthew Chang

Layne Funston

Xiang Li

Alex C. Lim

Alyssa P. Lu

Sukruti Pamarti

Charlotte C. Pham

Derrick K. Wong

La Habra

Sonora High

Andrey Rosita

Laguna Beach

Laguna Beach High

Frederic Butler

Lyric Hagen

Lake Forest

El Toro High

Charlotte Barkehanai

Los Alamitos

Los Alamitos High

Warren C. Carruth

Jacob D. Leung

Daniel C. Li

Vivian M. Moore

Tracy A. Nguyen

Avery M. Yew

Mira Zacheis

Mission Viejo

Capistrano Valley High

Justice T. Grier

Donovan James

Trabuco Hills High

Jennifer Jain

Colin Kerns

Grace Regier

Sahil Shah

Gavin Smith

Newport Beach

Corona del Mar High

James E. Leehealey

Naiya E. Sapru

Camille A. Tauro

Sage Hill School

Madeleine Chao

Emily Chen

Anna Gabriel

Katelyn Gan

Justin Graham

Benjamin Haworth

Sophia Isakov

Wanlin Jiang

Ian Kim

Harriet Lai

Jesse Lew

Christine Li

Frank Lin

Sophia Lin

Jacob Lynn

Bo Pang

Raquel Rybakova

Claire Sueyoshi

Evelyn Wang

Mingyue Wang

Jiaming Zhang

Sophia Zhou

Orange

Orange Lutheran High

Ethan Ahn

Placentia

Valencia High

Samuel Choi

Saebyeok Keum

Yoojun Park

Rancho Santa Margarita

Santa Margarita Catholic High

Evelyn Weng

Tesoro High

Ayush Ganguly

Michelle Guo

Jessie Li

San Juan Capistrano

JSerra Catholic High

Bryson Bisuna

Jack H. Ebner

Sydney A. Huynh

Lauren T. Kiani

Sophie Polay

Adam Tong

Solange Youssef

St. Margaret’s Episcopal School

Alexa Edwards

Andrew C. Rusli

Justin E. Tam

Santa Ana

Foothill High

Gabriela M. Afable

Alexis Chew

Elle Doughty

Orange County School of the Arts

Matthew Bay

Yeeun Chung

James Conroy

Estella Keyoung

Hennah Kim

Katherine Kim

Matthew Martono

Samuel Parigela

Kaya Sparnicht

Tustin

Legacy Magnet Academy

Justice Cheng

Jaiden Lee