Stephanie Jones / Intel Northwest Science Expo

Three of the six Intel science fair winners in this photo are among the many many National Merit semifinalists at Westview High announced today. Those three are first, fourth and fifth from left, namely Himani Sood, Divya Amirthharaj and Adit Gupta. The three other science superstars, from left, are Nandini Naidu, a freshman at Stanford University, Megan Joshi, a senior at South Salem High, and Nathan Tidball, a senior at Wilsonville High.

Oregon’s new crop of National Merit semifinalists, announced Wednesday, come from a smaller set of high schools than in years past, with more than half of them attending just six of Oregon’s 250-plus high schools.

Five of those six schools scores saw their number of top scorers increase this year. Perennial test score powerhouse Westview High alone had an astonishing 39 students named semifinalists, nearly twice the 20 it tallied last year.

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To be named a semifinalist, an Oregon student must score above the 99th percentile on the PSAT. The National Merit Scholarship Corp., which runs the scholarship contest, picks the top scorers in each state in proportion to the state's share of the nation's high school graduates.





Along with Westview, this year's powerhouse schools were Sunset and Lake Oswego high schools, with 15 semifinalists apiece; Lincoln High, with 14; and private high schools Jesuit and Catlin Gabel, with nine each.





Statewide, 192 students were named semifinalists. To become finalists, they must submit evidence of strong grades and course-taking, participation in school and community activities, leaderhip and having won other honors. They also must be endorsed by an official at their school, write an essay and earn SAT scores that confirm their elite status.





More than 90 percent of semifinalists are expected to make the cut. Those judged to have the strongest track records and liklihood of success will be named winners of $2,500 National Merit Scholarships.





Outside the Portland area, the school with the most semifinalists this year is South Eugene High, which had six. No other school outside the three-county Portland area had more than two.





Portland-area semifinalists include:

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Alliance Charter Academy

Katherine Bernklau Halvor

Aloha High

Paul Mitalipov

Beaverton High

Justin Chao

Dawson Fryer

Miles Hoeckel

Melinda Sun

Canby High

Maren Gingerich

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Layton Rosenfeld

Catlin Gabel

Natalie Dodson

David Edington

Hannah Fisher

Avi Gupta

Angela Jiang

David Liu

Zaidie Long

Layton Rosenfeld

Seth Talyansky

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Jack Nelson

Lyle Altschul, a Cleveland High cross country runner, is one of the Southeast Portland high school's four National Merit semifinalists.

Cleveland High

Lyle Altschul

Colter Decker

Noah Fort

Julia Rehmann

Corbett High

Victor Yang

Franklin High

William Hammond

Forest Grove

Sophia Mallett

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Finn Hawley-Blue / The Grant Magazine

Grant High student Arden Butterfield finds joy in filmmaking, according to student journalists at the award-winning Grant Magazine. Grant High student photographer Finn Hawley-Blue captured this image of Butterfield at work.

Grant High

Arden Butterfield

Emma Lickey

Huy Nguyen

Tanis Nielsen

Maisie Topping

Gresham High

Samuel Zhou

Homeschool

Stephen Pearson of Beaverton

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Jefferson High

Isabel Mace-McLatchie

Talib Pierson

Jesuit High

Rea Agnihotri

Gregory Cowles

Taylor Dischinger

Amelia Frederking

Catherine Grimme

Jack Hill

Anisha Kumar

Charles Law

Charles Martin

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GoFundMe

Carl Bergstrom competed on the ToborTech robotics team along with fellow Lake Oswego students Jack Bride, Nick DeGrood, Mason Mann, Jeffery Sun, Kevin Tsai, and Parker Williams. Bergstrom is one of 15 Lake Oswego High students named National Merit semifinalists.

Lake Oswego

Carl Bergstrom

Erica Chiang

Grace Cook

Nicholas DeGroot

Elana Lee

Andrew Liu

Zhangxiang Lu

Anushka Nair

Danielle Nead-Work

Katherine Oppenheimer

Matthew Seeley

Eric Snell

Sydney Von Arx

Allen Zhang

Michael Zhao

Lakeridge High

Eva Augst

Russell Breaux

Julia Fennell

Rohan Myers

Benjamin Vessely

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Oregonian file photo

Sameer Suri, second from right, and Ashok Kaushik, far right, were just middle school kids when their Lego robotics team, Lego Pie on Ears, competed at a robotics world champion competition in 2013. Now Suri and Kaushik are among 14 Lincoln High students named National Merit semifinalists.

Lincoln High

Jared Chen

Justin Ching

Sydney Dunn

Ashok Kaushik

Katherine Kim

Daniel Lewinsohn

Andrew W. Liu

Yilan Liu

Daniel Luo

Raja Moreno

Roman Smith

Sameer Suri

Randall Zhang

Sophia Zhang

Madison High

Holden Hindes

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Oregon City High

Evan Dodson

Oregon Episcopal School

David Fang

Simon Hatcher

Maxfield Parson-Scherban

Inchan Sung

Sandy High

Hyung Jun Lee

Sherwood High

Shauryavrat Guar

Southridge

Julian Dukes

Patrick Huang

Jun Kwak

Dane Miller

Louis Zhang

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Nike Border Clash

Sarah Lyell, a distance runner at St. Mary's Academy, is one of six young women at her school named National Merit semifinalists.

St. Mary’s Academy

Tabitha Anderson

Sarah Lyell

Fiona McLary White

Lucy Miller

Lauren Phillips

Jasmine Yu

Sunset High

Emily Anderson

James Coronel

Alanna Croysdale

Anusha Dixit

Tyler Durham

Miles Epstein

Gabriela Garcia

Andrew Jin

Kevin Jin

Vikram Kashyap

Nathan Purwosumarto

Megumi Shirasaki

Mihira Sogal

Elaine Yang

Jaqueline Zhang

Tigard High

Alexandra Harbury

Tualatin High

Emily Pfailer

Valley Catholic

Sivasomasundari Arunarasu

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Laura Gunderson / The Oregonian|OregonLive

As a high school sophomore, Calli Masters called for policies to combat school shootings, much like these students at a candlelight vigil held after a school shooting at Reynolds High. This year Masters is among eight seniors at West Linn High named National Merit semifinalists.

West Linn High

Philip Chan

Maya Colman

Callista Masters

Caitlin McCabe

Rishima Mukherjee

Caleb Oltmans

Kevin Wang

Jessica Yu

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Westview High's winning science bowl team included Ben Chiu, Grant Chen, and Eric Tong, all of whom were named National Merit semifinalists, along with a whopping 36 other Westview seniors. The photo shows, from left, Chiu, Chen, Justin Yang, Justin Bao, Tong and teacher Fabian Mak.

Westview High

Rohan Ajjarapu

Divya Amirtharaj

Conall Anderson

Lincoln Bay

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Maya Bedge was chosen as the Metro West Rose Festival Princess during her junior year of high school. The Westview senior has also been named a National Merit semifinalist.

Westview High, continued

Maya Bedge

Seth Bell

Maximus Bricken

Grant Chen

Ben Chiu

Jasmin Falconer

Tapabrata Ghosh

Britney Guo

Adit Gupta

Jeff Huang

Andrew Lane

Lauren Li

Emily McClaughry

Paul McDougald

Neha Mishra

Meghana Narahari

Sushrut Subrahma Nunna

Shishir Pandit-Rao

Medha Prakash

Alyssa Pratt

Sara Shao

Alyssa Shi

Saikarthik Sivakumar

Himani Sood

Sanjay Srikanth

Alex Tharappel

Eric Tong

Cindy Wang

Samantha Weiss

Jason Wong

Cynthia Xu

Emma Yang

Jessica Yang

Elaine Zheng

Amelia Zimmerman

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Ben Chiu, a Westview High senior, has placed high in national and international history, math and science competitions. He is one of 39 National Merit semifinalists from Westview High, located in the Beaverton school district.