Buchholz, Eastside, Gainesville High students named National Merit finalists 

Students from (clockwise top left) Gainesville, Buchholz and Eastside high schools were named finalists in the National Merit Scholarship Program.
Students from (clockwise top left) Gainesville, Buchholz and Eastside high schools were named finalists in the National Merit Scholarship Program.
Courtesy of ACPS

The National Merit Scholarship Program has selected 34 Alachua County Public Schools (ACPS) students as National Merit finalists. 

National Merit finalists are eligible for thousands of dollars in scholarships from businesses, colleges and universities and other organizations. 

To qualify as a semifinalist, students must earn some of the nation’s highest scores on the Preliminary SAT/National Qualifying Test (PSAT/NMSQT), which is taken by over 1.5 million students each year. Each year, about 16,000 students are named semifinalists. 

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To move into the finalist category, students must then earn high scores on the SAT and submit applications highlighting their other academic achievements, leadership activities, awards and honors. They must also write an essay and submit teacher recommendations. 

From Buchholz High School, 20 students were chosen as finalists, seven from Eastside High School and seven more from Gainesville High School. 

This year’s finalists, listed by school, are as follows: 

Buchholz High School 

Megan Chen, Richard Feng, Nolan Gao, William Guan, Noah Hunter, Max Kaplan, Melissa Li, Hailey Lin, Edison Loftus, Kelsey Morey, Peter Neubert, Warren Pfund, Sarah Rodkin, Parsa Tehranipoor, Daniel Wang, Laurie Wang, Nathan Wei, Billy Yang, Kailyn Zhai, Emmanuel Zheng 

Eastside High School 

Madeleine Gurka, Daniel Huang, Shravya Mandava, August McDaniel, Isaac Savin, Noah Siegel, Rachel Xu 

Gainesville High School 

Cadien Archer, Maheer Bansari, Peter Blay, Kyle Choe, Kathleen Ferrer, Ellee Guin, Katelinn Kochtan 

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Bill

So proud of the young people in Gainesville, this gives me hope for our future.

Real Gainesville Citizen and Voter

Wait a minute! These young high achievers are students of Alachua County Public Schools? How can that be?!? After all the negative comments floating around about ACPS, 34 of its students were selected as National Merit Scholars? And they did that without their schools converting from public to charter? How could that be???
Congratulations to these wonderful youngsters and to the fine academic programs that produced them. Thank you, ACPS.