National Merit recognizes 59 SUSD students

Twenty-one Scottsdale Unified School District (SUSD) students have qualified as National Merit Semifinalists, another 37 students received letters of commendation, and one student received a special achievement award.

According to the National Merit Scholarship Program, about 16,000 students, or approximately one-third of the 50,000 high scorers on the PSAT/NMSQT®, qualify as semifinalists. This year, 21 students from SUSD high schools qualified. They are: Jessica Fuller, Gwen Johnson, and Christa Laser, from Arcadia High School; Summer Craig, Jacob Grossman, Xenia Kramida, Lingjie Li, Karl McPhee, Sara Mueller, Jessica Nahom, Allen Pan, Hester Shieh, John Watson, and Elisa Zhang, from Chaparral High School; Kate Beauchamp, Jessica Behm, Manali Bhave, Meghan Bhave, Nate Dahlin, and Emily Russell, from Desert Mountain High School; and Charles Seyffer, from Saguaro High School.

Another 37 students from SUSD received letters of commendation in recognition of their outstanding academic promise. These commended students are: Bryant Kearl, Kathryn Kreitler, Lindsey McCaleb, and Rachel Taranta, from Arcadia High School; Brittany Clifton, Daniel Crawford, Amanda Grosse, Karli Stander, Aaron Kronenfeld, Debbie Lay, Elizabeth Waldman, Lauren Miller, Lindsay Cullum, Jamison Scarborough, Ellis Friedman, Reed Scharff, Zane Ullman, and Mihai Vintilescu, from Chaparral High School; Mesbah Ahmad, Rebecca Chan, Megan Emerick, Brad Factor, Jennifer Hawk, Jud Kilbourn, Stefanie Marasco, Garrett Moore, Prasun Pal, Alex Quel, Michael Schwartz and Grayson Steinberg, from Desert Mountain High School; and Zachary Dodd, Marjorie Hazeltine, Lauren Hecht, Adrian Hughson, Michael Rezzo, Charles Seyffer, and Ashley Sobel, from Saguaro High School.

Additionally, Blair Green from Saguaro High School received a special achievement award. Ms. Green was one of more than 1,600 high school seniors nationwide who were named semifinalists in the 40th annual National Achievement Scholarship Program, an academic competition for Black American high school students.
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