MADISON –Both high schools in Madison City Schools can boast about students who constantly reach high accomplishments. Thirty seniors have qualified as National Merit Semifinalists in the 69th annual National Merit Scholarship Program.

With 30 semifinalists, MCS has more recipients than any other school district in Alabama, regardless of the system’s size.

Bob Jones has 16 National Merit Semifinalists. James Clemens High School has 14.

Semifinalists from Bob Jones are Abram Carlson, Samantha Chan, Andrew Crocker, Gianna Dieselberg, Rachel Ehrman, Luke Garrison, Elizabeth Haddock, Lucy Halter, Piper Larkin, Francois Le Roux, Madeline McInvale, Elizabeth Newsom, Pranaav Satheesh, Lauren Sheehy, Taylor Turpin and Zoe Widman.

James Clemens students who ranked as semifinalists are Angela Ai, Shivani Alapati, Carlin Chacko, Bhavya Chalasani, Clara Choung, Abhishek Emani, Connie Guo, Grace Hur, Lilliann Markowitz, Aasim Musani, Brock Senel, Neil Sethi, Saahil Shaik and Samuel Townsend.

MCS Superintendent Dr. Ed Nichols said he is proud of the students for their hard work and for the teachers that prepared them from the earliest grades to their time as upperclassmen. Nichols said MCS has unwavering support of parents, community leaders, board of education, principals, administrators and teachers and staff in primary and secondary levels.

Most Madison semifinalists attended MCS from elementary school throughout high school. “These results once again prove that it does not matter where you live or go to school in Madison . . . every school is one of the nation’s best,” Nichols said.

“This is the third year in a row and the fourth time in the last five years that MCS has had the most National Merit Semifinalists of all school districts in Alabama,” MCS Manager of Public Relations John Peck said. “The 16 students from Bob Jones and the 14 from James Clemens placed both high schools in the top five of Alabama high schools.”

In the past five years, MCS has had 144 National Merit Semifinalists.

The nationwide pool of National Merit Semifinalists, representing less than one percent of U.S. high school seniors, includes the highest scoring students in each state on the Preliminary SAT/National Merit Scholarship Qualifying Tests or PSAT/NMSQT tests.