Twenty Scottsdale Unified School District seniors are among the nearly 400 Arizona students named Semifinalists in the 2024 National Merit Scholarship Program. 

Each year, the program recognizes top students in the nation’s high school graduating class for their academic achievements, leadership in their school communities and potential for success in post-secondary studies.

Of the more than 1.3 million students who took the 2022 Preliminary SAT/National Merit Scholarship qualifying test last fall as juniors, more than 16,000 semifinalists have been selected to continue in the competition, including the following seniors from these SUSD high schools:

• Arcadia High School ‒ Lauren Matz
• Chaparral High School ‒ Douglas Driggs, Chloe Greetis, Tyler Higgins, Joseph Kahn, Tate Leventhal, Sania Patel, Darshan Shankar, Morgan Tefft, Elvia Uzdonas
• Desert Mountain High School ‒ Adelina Grotenhuis, Victoria Leung, David Ortloff, Leo Weber
• Saguaro High School ‒ Mitchell Fesmire, Alyssa Perrine, Amutha Rajasundaram, Nikhil Sethi, Alex Stephenson, Jake Weiss

“We are so proud of our students and honored to have been able to provide the formal part of their educational journey,” said SUSD’s Superintendent, Dr. Scott Menzel.  “We know that many great things are ahead for these outstanding seniors.”

The 20 SUSD students and their fellow semifinalists nationwide represent less than one percent of the class of 2024 and include each state’s highest-scoring entrants in the 69-year-old scholarship competition. They now move on to the finalist stage and have the next several weeks to complete a detailed scholarship application that includes their high school academic record and descriptions of their participation in school and community activities, employment, and honors and awards they have received. They must also submit an essay, be endorsed and recommended by a high school official and submit SAT or ACT scores that confirm their junior year PSAT performance.

Finalists for $28 million worth of college scholarships will be determined in February 2024; National Merit Scholarship winners will be named in monthly announcements from April to July, 2024.