CVUSD National Merit semifinalists announced
By Joann Groff joann@theacorn.com

Twenty-three Conejo Valley Unified School District high school students have been named National Merit semifinalists.

The group is among 1,800 state honorees and 16,000 semifinalists in the nation.

"That may sounds like a big group, but this is out of 1.3 million entrants in the country," said Athol Wong, principal at Newbury Park High School.

The National Merit Program is an academic competition for recognition and scholarships. Students enter the program after taking the Preliminary SAT/ National Merit Scholarship Qualifying Test and are judged on their scores.

In February, finalists will be chosen based on their scores. The pool will then be further whittled down by recommendations, leadership, activities and an essay.

The National Merit semifinalists at NPHS are Michael Alland, Heather De Camp, Kevin La Rosa and Lingmiao Wang.

The Thousand Oaks High School honorees are Kathryn Baungarten, Stephanie Bonds, Young Kim, Annelise Mah, Brian Moon, Karly Noblitt, Abby Sassoon and Kenneth Wang.

And the Westlake High semifinalists are Michael Chen, Dominic Insogna, Benjamine Liu, Kathleen Lo, Victoria Lou, Andrew Maleki, Linda Peng, David Richardson, Philip Shao, Aislinn Smalling and Danni Xie.