21 BASIS Independent Silicon Valley Students Honored as National Merit Semifinalists

The high-achieving school in San Jose continues its run of impressive academic accolades

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Sep 14, 2017, 13:21 ET

SAN JOSE, Calif., Sept. 14, 2017 /PRNewswire/ -- Today ofﬁcials of National Merit Scholarship Corporation (NMSC) announced the Semiﬁnalists in the 63rd annual National Merit Scholarship Program – including 21 BASIS Independent Silicon Valley students. These academically talented high school seniors have an opportunity to continue in the competition for some 7,500 National Merit Scholarships worth more than $32 million that will be offered next spring.

BASIS Independent Silicon Valley Head of School Toby Walker, and 20 of the 21 seniors who are 2018 National Merit Semifinalists.

About 1.6 million juniors in more than 22,000 high schools entered the 2018 National Merit Scholarship Program by taking the 2016 Preliminary SAT/National Merit Scholarship Qualifying Test (PSAT/NMSQT®), which served as an initial screen of program entrants. The nationwide pool of Semiﬁnalists, representing less than one percent of U.S. high school seniors, includes the highest scoring entrants in each state.

"Each of these students deserves this amazing honor," said Toby Walker, BASIS Independent Silicon Valley Head of School. "Our program infuses students with a love of learning. There are many ways to demonstrate that passion. This is one of those ways, and we're proud of them."

The honored students at BASIS Independent Silicon Valley are:

Nitya Baddam	Alvin Kin
William Cao	Vinay Krishna
Bethany Chen	Rishab Mitra
Brian Chen	Sergey Pavlov
Pavan Gowda	Aaron Sun
Christopher He	Anushree Thekkedath
Kimberly Hou	Nikki Wang
Jerry Huang	Patrick Wang
Shrivats Kannan	Angela Ye
Eish Kapoor Shreya Khandewale	Lorne Zhang
Eish Kapoor Shreya Khandewale

From the approximately 16,000 Semiﬁnalists, about 15,000 are expected to advance to the Finalist level, and in February they will be notiﬁed of this designation. All National Merit Scholarship winners will be selected from this group of Finalists. The scholarship winners of 2018 will be announced in four nationwide news releases beginning in April and concluding in July. These scholarship recipients will join more than 330,000 other distinguished young people who have earned the Merit Scholar title.

About BASIS Independent Schools

BASIS Independent Schools are part of the BASIS Curriculum Schools network, serving students from Preschool through Grade 12. The acclaimed BASIS Curriculum has cultivated excellent student outcomes every year since its founding in 1998, educating students at the highest international levels and preparing them to be participants, not spectators, in the 21^st century global workforce of commerce and innovation. The network's schools and students have consistently prospered by any measure – national rankings, OECD/PISA testing, Advanced Placement achievement, National Merit Scholarship honors, and college admissions, among many others. There are currently thirty-two BASIS Curriculum Schools: twenty-five public charter schools in Arizona, Texas, Louisiana, and Washington, D.C., five independent schools in California, New York, and Virginia, and two international schools in Shenzhen and Guangzhou, China. For more information, please visit BASISIndependent.com or BASISed.com.