More Than 20 Rockwood Students Named National Merit Scholarship Semifinalists

A total of 22 Rockwood students have been named semifinalists for the 2025 National Merit Scholarship Program (NMSP).

Each year, approximately 16,000 high school seniors from around the nation are selected as semifinalists for this prestigious program, which gives them the opportunity to continue in the competition for some 6,870 National Merit Scholarships worth nearly $26 million that will be offered in the spring.

This pool of semifinalists represents less than 1 percent of all U.S. high school seniors. Rockwood's National Merit Scholarship semifinalists are:

• Clara Bass, Lafayette High
• Joslyn Bogner, Marquette High
• Shreya Das, Marquette
• Maleah Eggers, Marquette
• Luecken Graves, Marquette
• Jessica Guan, Lafayette
• Mary Hails, Lafayette
• Dennison Harris, Marquette
• Charles Heppe, Lafayette
• Gauri Kathula, Lafayette
• Audrey Keller, Lafayette
• Sri Vaishnavi Krishnan, Marquette
• Emaline Little, Marquette
• Simone Marta, Lafayette
• Caleb Mitchell, Marquette
• Atharva Shinde, Marquette
• Hridhay Suswaram, Marquette
• James Tse, Marquette
• Aryan Valsa Pradeep, Marquette
• Sophia Wood, Lafayette
• Lucas Zhang, Marquette
• Nolan Zink, Marquette

High school juniors entered the 2025 National Merit Scholarship Program by taking the 2023 Preliminary SAT/National Merit Scholarship Qualifying Test (PSAT/NMSQT), which served as an initial screen of program entrants. The nationwide pool of semifinalists includes the highest-scoring entrants in each state.

With 14 semifinalists, Marquette has the third-highest number of any school in the state of Missouri, public or private, and the second-highest total for public schools in the state. Overall, Rockwood contributed nearly 8 percent of the 277 National Merit Scholarship semifinalists from Missouri this year.

From this group of semifinalists, around 15,000 will be selected as finalists in February, based on their academic record, participation in school and community activities, demonstrated leadership abilities, employment and honors and awards received.

Congratulations to these outstanding Rockwood students!