Westlake High School announced its 33 finalists in the 2025-26 National Merit Scholarship Program today. Nationally, 6,700 Finalists earned the “Merit Scholar” title and received a total of nearly $24 million in college scholarships.
To become a finalist, a student must have an outstanding high school academic record, including difficulty level of subjects studied and grades earned; contributions and leadership in school and community activities; an essay written by the Finalist; and a recommendation written by a high school official.
The National Merit process began with more than 1.5 million juniors in 22,000 schools who took the Preliminary SAT test in 2024; semifinalists were the highest-scoring participants. The nationwide pool of semifinalists, which represents less than one percent of U.S. high school seniors, includes the highest-scoring entrants in each state.
Westlake High School National Merit Finalists for 2025-26 are:
Rohan Augustin
Advaith Binu
Beckham Blunt
Wyatt Caudle
Soha Dalal
Sreekar Garimella
Anay Gandhar Gokhale
Adam Gravelle
Shaunak Hoskote
Ved Hoskote
Carter Johnson
Hudson Kerr
Colin Kish
Timothy Kozlowski
Leo Laessig
Vanessa Law
Hutchinson Martinez-Self
Kristin Min
Elliot Nutt
Daniel Orshansky
Cierra Palosh
Julia Poage
Sandeep Roy
Dharma Sabapathy
Vedant Sacheendran
Grace Shannon
Emma Ton
Angie Wang
Ethan Wang
Edward Yan
Aarush Yarlagadda
Casey Yi
Evan Yip