Albuquerque Public Schools
Congrats to our 2023 National Merit Scholarship Semifinalists
37 APS seniors are among the nation's top academically talented high school students.
Thirty-seven Albuquerque Public Schools high school seniors, the most in recent history, have been named semifinalists in the National Merit Scholarship Program. They are among 16,000 students from across the nation competing for $28 million in scholarships.
To qualify as semifinalists, students earned top scores on the 2021 Preliminary SAT/National Merit Scholarship Qualifying Test. Millions of students in tens of thousands of high schools take the exam each year. The nationwide pool of semifinalists, representing less than 1 percent of U.S. high school seniors, includes the highest-scoring entrants in each state.
"To be recognized as a National Merit Semifinalist is a huge honor for students because it represents years of hard work and dedication to learning," said APS Superintendent Scott Elder. "Congratulations to this bright group of students. We are proud of your accomplishment and expect great things from you in the future."
The 2023 APS Semifinalists
Albuquerque High School
- Amani Bettler
- Symmes Cannon
- Laurel Desilets
- Henry Pontzer
- Tao West
Cibola High School
- An Pham
Early College Academy
- Victoria Scott
- Francisco Vigil
Eldorado High School
- Benjamin Holt
- Isaac Huber
- Ellie Suo-Anttila
- AnneMarie Webb
- Adam Wheeler
Highland High School
- Harmony Jenkins
La Cueva High School
- Pascale Allred
- Harlan Bandy
- Cael Beckley
- Thomas Chung
- Tatyana Falkowsky
- Wyatt Han
- Drew Jacobson
- Griffin Kreuter
- Isabella Lundahl
- Sofia McBee
- Kenneth Robbins
- Grant Staten
- Eliza Sumner
- James Sun
- Nehan Tarefder
- Gabriel Tracy
- Alexander Wagenman
- Jeffrey Yang
- Charles Zhou
Sandia High School
- Elijah Keene
- Steven West
Volcano Vista High School
- Kayla Hynes
- Noah Litz
Of the more than 16,000 semifinalists nationwide, about 15,000 are expected to advance to the finalist level, and in the spring, they will be notified of this designation. All National Merit Scholarship winners will be selected from this group of finalists. Merit Scholar designees are selected based on their skills, accomplishments, and potential for success in rigorous college studies, without regard to gender, race, ethnic origin, or religious preference.
Those students will compete for one of three merit scholarships:
- $2,500 National Merit Scholarship (2,500 awarded nationally)
- Corporate-sponsored Merit Scholarship Award (about 950 awarded by about 220 corporations and businesses nationally)
- College-sponsored Merit Scholarship (3,800 awarded by about 160 colleges and universities).