OTM High Schoolers Named National Merit Finalists

The National Merit Scholarship Corp. recently announced the names of finalists in the 68th Annual National Merit Scholarship Program, including a plethora from Over the Mountain.

Selection of finalists is based on their academic record, participation in school and community activities, demonstrated leadership abilities, employment, and honors and awards.

About 1.5 million high school students enter the highly competitive program each year. About 15,000 semifinalists have been named. Of these, 7,250 finalists will be selected to receive Merit Scholarship awards. These include $2,500 individual National Merit Scholarships or corporate and college-sponsored scholar- ships.

This year’s National Merit finalists in the Over the Mountain area are:

Homewood – J.W. Bird, Brandon Collins, Lily Giffin, Nathan Jones, Kiran McCool and Richard Reed.

Hoover – Hoover High School: Jari Chen, Lukas Fu, Kashvi Gaddam, Lauren Geisler, Thomas Gullahorn, Dylan Haigler. Thomas Hao, Matthew Harden, Eshika Kudaravalli, Dominic Renda, Hannah Reynolds, Midhun Sadanand, Matthew Shen, Jacob Upton, Rati Venkatesan and Liz Wang.

Spain Park High School: David Collins, Zachary Lin, Benjamin Roberts, Fiona Selle and Nicholas Stefanov.

Mountain Brook – Virginia Averyt, Will Decker, Howie Eldridge, Vaughn Frost, Nate Holden, Davis Lee, Lilly Odom, Jackson Perkins, Caley

Record, Carson Rehder and Libby Turner.

Vestavia Hills – James Anthony, Jamie Casey, Haojun Chen, Arman Dolatabadi, Malaika Dsa, Jaxon

Dunlevy, Zain Farooqui, Isabella Gentry, Jonathan Gidley, Kate Kaiser, Rebecca Maddox, Mary Katherine Meeks, Philip Mitchell, Susan Baskar Raj, Alice Sun, Graham Uldrich, Amith Varambally, Erin Visser, Hannah Wright and Dylan Zhao. Oak Mountain – Kyle Noah Hiers, Justin Carter Ferreiro, Benjamin Paul Dyer and Emily Beth Lunsford.

Altamont – Sid Doppalapudi, Pranav Goli, Lila Mitchell and Wesley Sudarshan.

Briarwood – Sam Olsen.

Indian Springs – Star Cheng, Gus Colvin, Vickie Kim, William Kong, Cynthia Li, Mayu Nakano, Yuji Nakano, Nour Shoreibah and Enoch Xiao.

John Carroll Catholic – Lily Watts and Adeline Jehu.