One school has 33 of Cobb’s 85 National Merit semifinalists

Walton High School, which opened its new building July 30 head of the first of 2017 classes, has 33 National Merit Scholarship semifinalists.

Credit: Steve Schaefer

Credit: Steve Schaefer

Walton High School, which opened its new building July 30 head of the first of 2017 classes, has 33 National Merit Scholarship semifinalists.

Update: After first receiving an incomplete list from the Cobb County School District, this story now correctly reflects the county’s semifinalists.

One Cobb County school has 33 new reasons to brag.

That's how many Walton High School students were just named National Merit Scholarship semifinalists of the county's 85 total honorees.

Three are from The Walker School, a private school in Marietta, and the rest are from the Cobb County School District.

The district announced on Thursday that the seniors were some of the 16,000 semifinalists across the nation.

Cobb schools said that the 33 at Walton, the newest high school building in the district, puts it at second place in Georgia for most semifinalists.

About 1.6 million juniors from more than 22,000 high schools took the qualifying test. The semifinalists were picked from the highest-scoring students in each state.

To become a finalist, students have to submit an application including their academic record, an endorsement from a school official and an essay.

About 7,500 scholarships will be given out, for a total of $32 million.

There are different kinds of National Merit scholarships — some sponsored by colleges, others by companies — that will be announced at different times throughout 2018.

Below are the 85 Cobb semifinalists.

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Allatoona High School 

James C. Matalenas 

Kennesaw Mountain High School 

Daniel H. Chu 

Mary K. Gale 

Hannah K. Gregory 

Gwendolyn B. Henry 

Meredith B. Johns 

Erin E. Morrow 

Kathleen M. Tanner 

Kell High School 

Mitchell Q. Gacuzana 

Lassiter High School 

Radhesh D. Amin 

Christopher L. Butcher 

Christopher W. Clark 

Justin Q. Coleman 

Jerry J. Harrison 

Virginia J. Langmaid 

Seth A. Nye 

Anastasia A. Onyango 

Oliver J. Park 

Samuel R. Quiroz 

Brenna Salkin 

Kyle T. Waldner 

Seo Y. Yoo 

Pope High School 

Francesca Burke 

Ellie R. Coe 

Caleigh A. Cullinan 

Suzanna A. Jiwani 

David A. Reingold 

Walton High School 

Kento M. Arendt 

Jiwoo Bae 

Harper S. Barbaree 

Eli M. Burstiner 

Carlson L. Chiles 

Daniel Cho 

Andrew H. Chyong 

Clayton J. Eshleman 

Catherine Fan 

Kaylynn L. Hiller 

Daniel C. Hudadoff 

John C. Hults 

Elaine S. Hwang 

Bita Jadali 

Tiffany N. Jeng 

Gina J. Kang 

Laura K. Key 

Hyunjin A. Kim 

Lucas Y. Kuan 

Jayanth Kumar 

Luke H. Lavin 

Eileen W. Law 

Cecelia I. Lu 

Harsimran Minhas 

Jacob H. Moore 

Robert A. Morgan 

Siddharth J. Natham 

Wesley D. Nourachi 

Adarshini Raja 

Akshat V. Sistla 

Wendy Yao 

Wooju R. Yim 

Grace K. Zhou 

Hillgrove High School

Emma L. Barron 

Caleb T. Partin 

Campbell High School 

Parrish L. Studebaker 

Wheeler High School 

Andrew R. Benecchi 

Shawn M. Doss 

Chibuzor I. Eduzor 

Kevin Fan 

Rohan R. George 

Nikhil I. Jindia 

Dhananjay Khazanchi

Jeet Kothari

Erin Z. Leydon

Alexander Madison

Melam Master

Colin T. McMillen

Anusha Moudgal

Arvin T. Poddar

Suyash Rajesh

Amithav B. Reddy

Michael A. Shible

Sofiya Vyshnya

Charles A. Wood

The Walker School

Chloe A. Champagne

Lauren N. Fischer

Brett D. Morrison

Visit The AJC's Ultimate Atlanta School Guide for information on Georgia schools, including which schools are the safest, how many years of experience the average teacher has and which schools have the highest SAT and graduation scores.