Seventeen Fulton County graduates are the latest to be named National Merit Scholars. They are: Andrew J. Mathes, Kunal D. Naik, Alexander E. Young of Alpharetta High; Samuel Hong, Joshika S. Money, Dhruv Nayar, Uday Sachdeva, Yasasvi Tadavarthi, Diana J. Wang, Yannan J. Wang, Sharon L. Zhang and Youmei Zhou of Northview High; Kevin H. Sun of Johns Creek High; Samuel A. Slappey of Milton High; Jacob R. Turner of Riverwood International Charter School and Caitlin Brennan and Paul G. Kurr of Roswell High. Sixty-one Fulton students earned National Merit scholarships this year. Students are initially identified through exceptionally high scores on the PSAT/National Merit Scholarship qualifying test, taken in their junior year. Students must have a record of high academic performance, be endorsed and recommended by their principal, and earn high SAT scores.
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Christopher Baleanu, a rising 10th grader at Gwinnett's Duluth High School, won the national champion title during the National Geography Challenge, a multiple choice question contest. Christopher shared first place with a student from Virginia. Duluth High's ninth grade team finished second in the nation in the competition and Christopher was part of that team. Other team members were: Alex Broomfield, Kishan Chudasama, Keon Grant, Lexie Hofmann, Joel Katz, Surya Narayanan, Vishnu Ramachandran, Michael Xu and Danny Zhang. Their teacher is Geri Flanary, who teaches AP human geography. The event is sponsored by the National Council for Geography Education. There are two categories: grades 7-9 and grades 10-12. Students have 35 minutes to answer 50 questions.
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