More than 100 Naperville-area students were named National Merit Scholar semifinalists in the 2027 scholarship program.
Students from Naperville School District 203, Indian Prairie School District 204, Lisle’s Benet Academy and Aurora’s Illinois Mathematics and Science Academy are included on the list.
Over 16,000 total students were named in the program, representing less than 1% of high school seniors nationwide.
D203 semifinalists
31 semifinalists were chosen from Naperville D203, with 13 from Naperville Central High School and 18 from Naperville North High School.
Naperville Central High School
- Jason Cheng
- Estella K. Czech
- Hazim S. Hasan
- Ryan V. Kong
- Kendall T. Nghiem
- Aditi M. Patel
- George Sbarboro
- Zoey Tian
- Ludovic Videau
- Prakruthi A. Vijay
- Davin F. Wang
- Rina J. Xu
- Mandy Yuan
Naperville North High School
- Adi A. Bawiskar
- Sidharth Brahmandam
- Parker Z. Chen
- Kyler H. Gao
- Zoey C. Hemmeter
- Kelly L. Hu
- Melody O. Hu
- Sean M. Hutchinson
- Maya L. Kocourek
- Brayden C. Lee
- Raymond H. Park
- Parikshit Puranam
- Ethan Qin
- Rui Qin
- Vibhav V. Ragam
- Alyssa R. Simpson
- James X. Wu
- Yikai W. Zhu
IPSD 204 semifinalists
52 semifinalists were chosen from IPSD 204, with 19 from Metea Valley High School, 7 from Waubonsie Valley High School, and 26 from Neuqua Valley High School.
Metea Valley High School
- Ebrahim F. Ajmal
- Aanika A. Bhatt
- Nadia W. Bocher
- Swapnoprotim Dey
- Nikhith Doppalapudi
- Aditi S. Gusain
- Ravi M. Hickey
- Pradhan Kanth
- Pratham Kanth
- John D. Manavalan
- Aarav Mishra
- Shresta Nibhanupudi
- Raghav Prabakar
- Sahil S. Rizvi
- Ojas Sachan
- Aayush V. Shah
- Jia J. Shenai
- Meghna Singh
- William J. Wang
Waubonsie Valley High School
- Mukil Dharanidharan
- Benjamin H. Miroballi
- Logan M. Moltumyr
- Madhav Naduviledath
- Kartika K. Palani
- Aviya Pinto
- Achyuth Randeep
Neuqua Valley High School
- Bhavleen K. Bamra
- Sristi Barnwal
- Sarit R. Bose
- Yuna Chae
- James K. Chen
- Jayden Chiou
- Miles A. Diorio
- Ansh Gujarathi
- Addison G. Guskey
- Luna Han
- Harshit R. Jain
- Aaron Jin
- Bryan R. Jing
- Amulya R. Kandimalla
- Ethan D. Lee
- Aria Paladugula
- Abigail E. Pierson
- Idhant Ranjan
- Ian M. Shao
- Maya Sharma
- Vishant Sharma
- Anagha Sheethal
- Kevin Yang
- April M. Zhan
- Christopher T. Zhang
- James Zhou
Benet Academy
Neighboring Lisle had five semifinalists named from Benet Academy.
- Ethan Berndl
- Joseph Jenkot-De la Rosa
- Emmett Malloy
- Jack Oleniczak
- Santiago Regan-Rojas
Illinois Mathematics and Science Academy
22 semifinalists were chosen from the Illinois Mathematics and Science Academy in Aurora.
- Kaustubh S. Bukkapatnam
- Alexandra Bystrukhina
- Ethan S. Chang
- Benjamin Charly
- Will J. Davis
- Kieran G. Edwards
- Nara Feng
- Pranav Gadde
- Kevin Hong
- Samhitha S. Kamatala
- Atharv R. Kanchi
- Siddharth Karuturi
- Hayeon Kwak
- Avery Lau
- Sofia A. Orjuela Alvarado
- Albert J. Pavlovic
- Damian A. Rodriguez
- Anushri N. Sinha
- Andrew R. Sun
- Saanvi N. Thammineni
- Karina N. Waller
- Ian Wang
How semifinalists are chosen
More than 1.2 million juniors across 20,000 U.S. high schools were initially screened for consideration through the 2025 Preliminary SAT/National Merit Scholarship Qualifying Test.
The selected semifinalists include the highest-scoring students in each state. The number of semifinalists in a state is proportional to the state’s percentage of the national total of graduating seniors.
Finalists to be announced
To become a finalist, the semifinalists, along with a high school official, have to submit a scholarship application noting leadership abilities, participation in community and school programs, academic record, honors, and employment. They must also submit an essay.
More than 15,000 semifinalists are expected to be chosen as finalists, with that announcement coming in February 2027.
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