Local National Merit semifinalists named

Several local high school seniors were named as semifinalists in the 53rd annual National Merit Scholarship Program.

The semifinalists advance to the finalist level where about half will be selected as Merit Scholarship winners next spring.

To become a finalist, a student must have an outstanding academic record throughout high school, be endorsed and recommended by the school principal, earn high SAT scores and submit an application which includes an essay and information about the student's participation and leadership in school and community activities.

The following students are the local semifinalists:

Agoura High School: Veenadhari Chavakula, Benjamin Eckstein, Jefferson Herbst-DeCortina, Kevin Kho, Kelsey Krigstein, Sergey Potiyevskiy, Ethan, Stark, Alexander Weingart.

Calabasas High School: Lucy Cheng, Jeffrey Hodes, Larissa Korach, Katherine Lockwood, Sean Povill, John Reilly, Darin Rosen, Jacob Schwartz, Kiley Sobel, Sean Soleyman, Kevin Soter.

Viewpoint School: Justin Bauer, Joshua Craft, Aren Gates, Cleo Handler-Jedrlinic, Lake McManus, Madeline Schwarz, Michaele Shaw.

Oak Park High School: Alon Cohen, Yanting Li, Alexandra Pourzia, Olivia Pourzia, Advait Shinde, Alexander Wang, Andy Winningham.

Oaks Christian School: Robert Nordlund

Westlake High School: Michael Chen, Dominic Insogna, Benjamine Liu, Kathleen Lo, Victoria Lou, Andrew Maleki, Linda Peng, David Richardson, Philip Shao, Aislinn Smalling, Danni Xie.