Local students honored for high scores

Seven Oak Park High School seniors have qualified for the first round of the National Merit Scholarship competition.

Carl Chen, Michael Feinberg, Aleksandr Nisnevich, Benjamin Pyle, Mateen Saffarian, Jiman (Alice) Wang, and Shirley Young were among the top scorers of more than 160,000 high school juniors who took the Preliminary SAT test in April. In fact, of the 16,000 students named semifinalists, the Oak Park teens' scores were among the top 1,100, according to Oak Park Principal Andi Mallen.

"Their PSAT scores were outstanding and to have seven students representing OPHS is huge," Mallen said.

The students must now fulfill additional requirements in order to advance to the next level of the competition. Those who qualify will advance to finalist status in February with winners selected between March and June.

About 90 percent of the semifinalists are expected to attain finalist standing, and half the finalists will win a National Merit Scholarship.

Calabasas High School qualified eight students for the award: Elisabeth Anterasian, Olivia Barry, Pallavi Basu, Wesley Fujishin, Max Schram, Katherine Wei, Meng-Yang Wu and Carolyn Yoo.

Viewpoint School in Calabasas qualified six students: Craig Bohrson, Hadi Elzayn, Eliza Fisher, Jenny Kim, Jackson Pfeiffer and Jesse Shevin.

Agoura High had four students as well: Sydni Adler, Gabriella Levy, Phoebe Simon and Alex Yeh.

The nonprofit National Merit Scholarship program is privatelyfunded and awards scholarships to more than 8,000 students nationwide. The awards are in their 54th year.

—Sophia Fischer