Over 50 North Jersey high schools have National Merit semifinalists

Schools in nearly 95 New Jersey cities, including 20 in Bergen County, saw their students selected for the prestigious National Merit Scholarship program. The organization announced its list of semifinalists on Thursday, Sept 9.

Bergen County Academies in Hackensack, a public high school for talented students, was among the schools with the most merit scholar semifinalists, at 24 students. There were 20 semifinalists from Millburn High School, and 17 from Livingston High School.

Other districts with a strong showing included Ridgewood High School, Tenafly High School, and Bergen County Technical High School in Teterboro.

Thousands of public and private school students nationwide — 16,000 made the 2027 list — who show exceptional academic talent qualify for the Illinois-based National Merit Scholarship Corporation's annual selection. These semifinalists compete for a smaller pool of scholarships and a Merit Scholar title.

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They are selected from public and private schools across the nation by the non-profit.

U.S. high school students who take the Preliminary SAT/National Merit Scholarship Qualifying Test and meet other program requirements enter the competition for National Merit Scholarship Program recognition and scholarships. Nearly all program participants will be juniors planning to enter college.

The company uses selection index scores calculated from the Reading and Writing, and Math section scores to determine 50,000 high-scoring participants who qualify for program recognition.

The program relies on its own funding and business sponsors to cover scholarships totaling $24 million that will be offered in the spring of 2027 to a final pool of 6,700 National Merit Scholars.

The 2027 semifinalists for northern New Jersey came from 20 towns in Bergen County, 2 Passaic County towns, 12 Morris County towns, 1 Sussex County town, and 9 Essex County towns.

Bergen Catholic High School, Oradell: Ian Ghacibeh, Alexander Shen

Bergen County Academies, Hackensack: Lara Arslan, Aryan Dhingra, Vikram Gangu, Hyuna Kang, Abigail Karpova, Isaac Kim, Yash Korgaonkar, Jacob Korn, Amrita Kumar, Aiden Lee, Hanvit Lee, Joshua Lee, Alexander Marynchev, Yuditt Mehta, Ashley Park, Aalok Pathak, Bozhan Shang, Elad Shav, Claire Shi, Clara Sullivan, Emily Tong, Kana Watanabe, Esther Yoo, Grace Zhou

Bergen County Institutes for Science and Technology, Demarest: Jayden Hwang

Bergen County Technical High School, Teterboro: Sammy Elsetouhi, Chloe Fung, Serene Go, Claire Joo, Evelyn Kim

Cresskill High School: Dain Kim

Dwight-Englewood School, Englewood: Caroline Chu, Andre Valencia

Dwight Morrow High School, Englewood: Arabella Go

Fair Lawn High School: Sourish Rikkala

Fort Lee High School: Joon Chang

Glen Rock High School: Selina Y. Feng

Northern Highlands Regional High School, Allendale: Jacob Kim

Northern Valley Regional High School, Demarest: Jun Furukawa, Chaewon Yoon

Northern Valley Regional High School, Old Tappan: Hayul Kim

Pascack Hills High School, Montvale: Jooyoung Oh

Pascack Valley High School, Hillsdale: Luli I. SooHoo

Ramsey High School: Declan P. Finnegan

Ridgewood High School: Amari Abdalla, Earnest J. Arnt-Schemmel, Aidan Han, Cheng Ze Liang, Edward Liu, Sia Sung

River Dell Regional High School, Oradell: Jocelyn Danbe, Dayeon Lee

River Vale High School: Homeschool/online school: Adeline S. Lee

Rutherford High School: Nina O. Tavani, Dwarakanath Vemuri

Saddle River Day School: Thomas Isernhagen, Rafael Ptashny, Shailen Shah

Tenafly High School: Kieran M. Corcoran, Charita Donapati, Daniel Han, Juyoung P. Kim, Henry J. Lee

Torah Academy of Bergen County, Teaneck: Ben-Tzion Kryzman

Cedar Grove High School: Timothy Antony, Kevin Guan

Columbia High School, Maplewood: Isabella A. Archer, Theodore E. Archer, Abraham P. Hoffman, Penuel H. Shapiro

Glen Ridge High School: Filip M. Ruggiero

Livingston High School: Kayla Fong, Kailin Kang, Shona Kumar, Aidan Lee, Justin Li, Arjun Selvam, Benjamin Sun

Millburn High School: Arnav Agarwal, James Chen, Rishaan Gurde, Katherine Jeanfreau, Ayati Jend, Luke Jia, Ava Legasto, Kevin Li, Alethea Liu, Michelle Luo, Aayan Mehta, Aarit Paliwal, Jaden Park, Gowri Rajesh, Andrew Shneyder, Tanvi Telang, Ryan Wang, Ian Xu, Aaron Yu, Fiorina Zhu

Montclair Kimberly Academy, Montclair: Tyler Parliman

Mount St. Dominic Academy, Caldwell: Sanaya Mistry

Newark Academy, Livingston: Leyu Girma, Kathertine Liang, Sachin Mitra, Ethan Zhou

Seton Hall Prep, West Orange: John Jerow, Aidan Lutz, Eamon McConnon

West Essex High School, North Caldwell: Zachary Cho, Evan Dyme

West Orange High School: Theodore Wickham

Chatham High School: Teesta Bhola-Shah, Alan Chen, Peter Krieg

Delbarton School, Morristown: Jake T. Caravello

Hanover Park High School, East Hanover: Diva Bhardwaj

Kent Place School, Summit: Tessa Chow

Montville High School: Aditya Anand, Karen Emmanuel, Aashka Reddy Katapally

Morris Catholic High School, Denville: Cameron Westrick

Morris County School of Technology, Denville: Jiya Bhadaja

Morris Hills High School, Rockaway: Emily Y. Chen, Sanvi H. Gandhi, Hunter R. Iorio, Daniel G. Lin, Vivek Ravinutala, Yashvasin Sudershan, Nikhil R. Trivedi, Isabel N. Underwood Pozzobon, Medha R. Vavilala

Morristown High School: Loretta G. Langlois

Parsippany High School: Amruta N. Bagdai

Parsippany Hills High School, Morris Plains: Sri Niranjan Gandhirajan Shivakku

Summit High School: Brianna Cui, Yimeng Guo, Hunter Patel

West Morris Mendham High School, Mendham: Graham E. Ogden

Whippany Park High School, Whippany: Claire Cho, Audrey Lee, Lucas Wu

Diana C. Lobosco STEM Academy, Wayne: Abhay Raina

Eastern Christian High School, North Haledon: Nathan Im

Wayne Hills High School, Wayne: Rayan Asaad

Elite Preparatory Academy, Hopatcong: Jonathan Ding

This article originally appeared on NorthJersey.com: Over 50 North Jersey high schools have National Merit semifinalists