69 seniors in the Great Neck Public Schools have been named commended students in the 2026 National Merit Scholarship Program. These students placed among the top 50,000 of the more than 1.5 million students nationwide who took the Preliminary SAT/National Merit Scholarship Qualifying Test in their junior year.
North High’s Commended Students are Alexander Baluyut, Nathaniel Bina, Alex Chen, Michelle Cheng, Julian Elihu, William Gao, Alvin Li, Kayden Li, Max Mueller, An Ping, Maggie Xiao and Noah Yousefzadeh.
South High’s Commended Students are Botond Acosta, Noah An, Abigail Badalov, Kyra Capodanno, Alexander Chang, Joshua Chang, Hannah Cheng, Katherine Cheung, Benson Chou, Ashley Chung, Stefan Cutler, Zaahid Desai, Emma Ding, Trinity Guan, Justina Hom, Joanna Huang, Jake Jagoda, Winnifred Jiang, Alexandra Keilbach, Nandini Khaneja, Aaron Kim, Alice Kim, Enoch Kim, Kylie Lam, Rachel Lee, Jaden Li, Jerry Li, Shichen Liu, Thomas Liu, Alexander Lo, Brendan Lo, Meera Mandrekar, Ethan Moy, Ashley Nguyen, He Ni, Chloe Ning, Jeremy Oak, Arnav Pemmaraju, Joy Pyun, Pericles Sgantzos, Claire Shang, Jinxian Elaine Su, Jessica Tamari, Tristan Wang, Samantha Wong, Albert Wu, Andy Wu, Julia Xu, Yuhao Xu, Sidney Yeung, Sean You, Mofan Yu, Marco Zhan, Ellen Zhang, Edward Zhao, Marvin Zhong and Yu Zhu.
Each honoree received a letter of commendation in recognition of exceptional academic promise. Although commended students do not continue in the competition for National Merit Scholarships, some become candidates for scholarships sponsored by corporations and businesses.
