Los Gatos and Saratoga High Schools honored their newest National Merit Scholarship semifinalists this fall after the names of more than 16,000 semifinalists were publicly announced as part of the 70th annual National Merit Scholarship Program.

In the Los Gatos-Saratoga Union High School District, 41 students qualified for this prestigious award.

These students now have the opportunity to continue competing for approximately 6,870 National Merit Scholarships worth nearly $26 million that will be awarded next spring.

Los Gatos (LGHS) and Saratoga (SHS) high school seniors participated in the 2025 National Merit Scholarship Program by taking the Preliminary SAT/National Merit Scholarship Qualifying Test (PSAT/NMSQT) as juniors last school year, along with over 1.3 million Juniors in approximately 21,000 secondary schools across the country.

This test served as an initial screening of program participants. The qualified semifinalists represent less than one percent of the U.S. high school seniors in the state.

For LGSUHSD, these students make up 5.1 percent of graduates.

Here are the 2024 National Merit Scholarship local semifinalists:

Katherine Berger (SHS)
Akshat Bora (SHS)
Rebecca Bossow (SHS)
Aiden M. Chen (SHS)
Richard Chung (SHS)
Leo Dai (LGHS)
Arshia Desarkar (SHS)
Kyle Eldridge (LGHS)
Hayden Fu (SHS)
Kirby Fung (SHS)
Kevin Gan (LGHS)
Sarah Gechlik (SHS)
Leonardo Jia (SHS)
Rohan Jones (LGHS)
Nicole Lee (SHS)
Timothy Leung (SHS)
Sydney Li (SHS)
Grace Liu (SHS)
Alan Lu (SHS)
Thien Mai (LGHS)
Skyler Mao (SHS)
Jack Mei (LGHS)
Aryeh Ohriner (LGHS)
Ruhan Periyacheri (SHS)
Tatum Pyle (LGHS)
Saira Ramakrishnan (SHS)
Tarun Ramakrishnan (SHS)
Rosa Sahandi (LGHS)
Daniel Schwartz (SHS)
Tanav Shankar (LGHS)
Ria Sharma (LGHS)
Tanuj K Siripurapu (SHS)
Angela Tan (SHS)
Alexander Vash-Munoz (SHS)
Andrae Wan (SHS)
Brandon Wang (SHS)
Timothy Wei (SHS)
Sora A. Wongsonegoro (SHS)
Luke Zhang (SHS)
Julius Zhou (SHS)
Jeremy Zhou (SHS)

“It is truly incredible how many of our students have received this national award,” said Acting Superintendent Heath Rocha. “This is a testament to their dedication, hard work and commitment to their academic success. I congratulate each student and am so grateful for the support and leadership of our educators and families who inspired and encouraged this achievement.”

Semifinalists have the opportunity to advance to the finalist level by submitting a detailed scholarship application providing information about the semifinalist's academic achievements, participation in school and community activities, demonstrated leadership skills, employment, and honors and awards received.

A semifinalist must demonstrate excellent academic performance throughout high school, write an essay, achieve SAT or ACT scores that confirm the student's previous performance on the aptitude test, and be endorsed and recommended by a high school teacher or administrator.

To learn more about the National Merit Scholarship program and process, visit www.nationalmerit.org.