Oceanside Student Named National Merit Semifinalist

OCEANSIDE, CA — A total of 190 San Diego County high school seniors — including one in Oceanside — have been named semifinalists in the 2027 National Merit Scholarship Program.

The students are among more than 16,000 semifinalists nationwide who will have an opportunity to compete for about 6,700 National Merit Scholarships worth approximately $24 million next spring, according to the National Merit Scholarship Corporation.

Local semifinalists are from Carlsbad, Coronado, Encinitas, La Jolla, Lakeside, Oceanside, Rancho Santa Fe, San Diego, San Marcos, Solana Beach, Spring Valley and Vista.

More than 1.2 million high school juniors entered the competition by taking the 2025 Preliminary SAT/National Merit Scholarship Qualifying Test. Semifinalists represent less than 1% of U.S. high school seniors and include the highest-scoring entrants in each state.

More than 15,000 semifinalists are expected to advance to finalist status in February. To qualify, students must submit a scholarship application detailing their academic record, school and community activities, leadership abilities, employment, honors and awards. They also must be endorsed by a school official, write an essay, and submit SAT or ACT scores confirming their earlier qualifying-test performance.

Scholarship winners will be announced in four rounds beginning in April and concluding in July.

These are the semifinalists in San Diego County:

Carlsbad

Carlsbad High School

• Broehmer, Anna
• Stein, Karlye

La Costa Canyon High School

• Brandenburg, Bennett

Pacific Ridge School

• Cochran, Avery
• Klapper, Dylan
• Revenko, Karina
• Simpson, Beckett
• Ye, Coco

Sage Creek High School

• Bartel, Johnathan
• Long, Lily
• Nelson, Maxwell

Coronado

Coronado High School

• Park, Calvin J.

Encinitas

The Grauer School

• Garner, John John

San Dieguito High School Academy

• Rocha, Anya

La Jolla

The Bishop's School

• Bello, Eseosa
• Blatt, Grayson E.
• Chan, Jasmine
• Fang, Adam J.
• Feng, Eric T.
• Guo, Daniel T.
• Kavanaugh, Ryan W.
• Kim, Brian J.
• Liu, Emma Q.
• Ng, Eugene Y.
• Rong, Zhiyi Emma
• Wang, Michelle M.
• Xu, Kayley Y.
• Zhang, Jiaqi A.
• Zheng, Chris

La Jolla Country Day School

• Du, Ariana
• He, Sandy
• Katz, Nico P.
• Saavedra, Hailey M.
• Zhang, Hangsu

La Jolla High School

• Beckman, Sarah E.
• Grodin, Sophie G.
• Keri, Evan D.
• Smith, Carolyn E.

Lakeside

El Capitan High School

• Hyles, Jack

Oceanside

El Camino High School

• Bunnell, Tyler R.

Rancho Santa Fe

Horizon Prep

• Seelman, Cole

San Diego

Cal Coast Academy

• Kim, Yaeji

The Cambridge School

• Lee, Christian
• Wang, Alice

Canyon Crest Academy

• Azmoodeh, Romteen
• Balaji, Varsha
• Carpiuc, Madelynn
• Chang, Brian
• Chen, Evan
• Chen, Katherine
• Choksi, Advait
• Cortes-Martinez, Jon
• Destefano, Alexander
• Diva, Andrea
• Dong, Erica
• Gao, Claire
• Garibaldi, Robert
• Garner, Liana
• Hammi, Marcus
• Huang, Arthur
• Huang, Ruihan
• Jariwala, Siddh
• Kaashyap, Samarth
• Karthik, Kavya
• Kim, Dylan
• Krummen, Amy
• Kumar, Rishi
• Kupolov, Mark
• Lesmes, Luca
• Li, Alethia
• Li, Amy
• Licari, Remy
• Lim, Claire
• Mao, Owen
• Maor, Eran
• Massura, Nash
• Menon, Varun
• Oh, Yulee
• Park, Myrrh
• Phan, Casey
• Porikli, Vedat
• Sacks, Noah
• Shi, Baylen K.
• Smith, Ryan
• Song, Andy
• Sun, Justin
• Terjesen, Sylvie
• Wu, Justin
• Wu, Yoyo
• Wu, Yufei
• Xue, Angela
• Yan, Alaina
• Yang, Calvin
• Yang, Janet
• Yang, Keshu
• Yi, Kai
• Zhang, Daniel
• Zhong, Anna
• Zhou, Isabella

Canyon Hills High School

• Andersen, Noah M.

Cathedral Catholic High School

• Bianconi, Theodor
• Millard, Jake
• Price, Jon

Del Norte High School

• Bandaru, Anwita
• Bu, Daniel
• Chiu, Tristan
• Guha, Risha
• Kang, Derek
• Kermani, Kasra
• Mandayam, Vibha
• Mittal, Arnav
• Parikh, Yash
• Selvakumar, Kiruthic
• Vahia, Anvay
• Wang, Evelyn
• Wang, Jonathan
• Wu, Jacob
• Xiao, Bridget
• Xu, Nathan
• Zhang, Dylan
• Zheng, Janie

Patrick Henry High School

• An, Jonathan Z.

Homeschool/Online School

• Hsu, Matthew
• Zhu, Jingyi

Mission Bay High School

• Venugopal, Vinayak

Mount Carmel High School

• Liang, Chloe
• Nandola, Krish
• Palaniappan, Aisvaryaa
• Ravikalyan Prasanna, Prem Aravind

Francis W. Parker School

• Aguirre, Ariana
• Herndon, Matthew
• Kroonen, Graham
• Lee, Richard
• Li, Jedd
• Sinnott, Liam
• Xu, Lillian

O'Farrell Charter School

• Johnson, Tyler D.

Rancho Bernardo High School

• Brizuela, Federico

San Diego High School of International Studies

• Augsburger, Samuel J.

Scripps Ranch High School

• Dasgupta, Arjun K.
• Gerber, Marshall J.
• Hayete, Ari S.
• Iyer, Saanvi S.
• Liu, Kamryn J.
• Majumder, Anoushka
• Marple, Wynn P.
• Park, Ganghwi
• Ramamurthy, Vidya
• Sharma, Saisha
• Willis, Dominic M.
• Yang, Hanlin

St. Augustine High School

• Simon, Lorenzo

Torrey Pines High School

• Buzi, Anika
• Chao, Emily
• Gu, Kevin
• Kim, Chloe
• Liu, Joanne
• Olson, Benicio
• Sun, Angie
• Yang, Brian
• Yudenfreund, Scott
• Zhou, Claire

University City High School

• McArthur, William G.
• Sharma, Sanskar

Westview High School

• Barrett, Connor
• Castro, Audrey Zenas
• Chen, Joyce
• Christopher, Luke
• Chu, Sophia
• Dharajula, Shriyans
• Kunapareddy, Sanjeev
• Lee, Arianna
• Lee, Kiana
• Liu, Yun-Cong
• McPhee, Alara
• Mo, Lucas
• Pallachulla, Shourya
• Sheth, Ayushi
• Sun, Emily
• Sun, Selina
• Vinas, Alana Mae
• Wong, Marcus
• Zhou, Xinyang

San Marcos

San Marcos High School

• Bishop, John
• Cholleti, Sahasra
• Sun, Anya

Solana Beach

Santa Fe Christian School

• Lee, Aspen

Spring Valley

Steele Canyon High School

• Koczwara, Julian T.

Vista

Rancho Buena Vista High School

• Olsavsky, Timothy B.

Tri-City Christian School

• Murphy, Robert D.