It's a Record: Solon High has 21 National Merit Semi-Finalists

Solon High School has more National Merit Scholar Semi-Finalists than it's ever had before.

In all, 40 Solon seniors were recognized with 21 being named semi-finalists in the 2012 National Merit Scholarship Competition and 19 more being recognized as "commended students."

"This group of seniors represents the largest number of Semi-Finalists in Solon High School history and ties Solon for the most Semi-Finalists this year in the state of Ohio, regardless of public or private school affiliation," said Solon High School Principal Erin Short. "We are extremely proud of the accomplishments of these young adults and congratulate them on this significant achievement."

The semi-finalists are: Raghav Bhargava, Andrew Branstetter, Thomas Centa, Oliver Chen, Kyra Douglas, James Du, Lisa Guo, Yi-Zheng Huang, Vibhuti Krishna, Michael Li, Tiffany Li, Yuxi Liu, Katie Oh, William Qu, Zachary Schwartz, Peter Shi, Kevin Ye, Haoran Yuan, Johnathan Zeng, Kathleen Zhang and Roger Zou.

The commended students are: Kelsey Aamoth, Siriana Abboud, Samir Amrania, Michael Chen, Megan Condon, Carolyn Crowcroft, Alison Dim, Gunchu Gupta, Caitlin Halperin, Alyssa Hatteberg, Mitchell Karns, Daniel Kernan, Jordan Klein, Nikhil Krishnan, Bradley Lewis, Brittany Previte, Sarah Richards, Minjie Sa and Yuxiao Xin.

The National Merit Scholarship competition has more than 1.5 million entries each year. Students enter the competition by taking the PSAT test.

Of that large number, about 50,000 students are recognized because of their acheivement on the PSAT. Of that amount, about 34,000 receive commended status, and about 16,000 become semi-finalists.

Solon's semi-finalists will continue in the competition by taking the SAT test and completing a scholarship applicaton.

Winners receive scholarships for college.