Twelve students from Gilbert Public Schools have been named semifinalists in the National Merit Scholarship Program, which honors the top 1% of high school seniors in the United States. The recognized students attend Campo Verde High, Gilbert Classical Academy, Gilbert High, and Highland High.
The semifinalists were selected based on their performance on the PSAT or National Merit Scholarship Qualifying Test (NMSQT). The students are:
From Campo Verde High: Ryan P. Donlon, Matthew C. Duty, Brendan J. Schaefer, and Sofie Theurer.
From Gilbert Classical Academy: Kaiser Chen, Paul-Matteo D. Cristobal, Kyle M. Jones, and Shivang Parmar.
From Gilbert High: Alexandra R. Cardine, Dean C. Smith, and Jonas R. Theriot.
From Highland High: Jacob Black.
These students have taken different academic paths within the district’s offerings. Some focused on Honors and Advanced Placement (AP) courses in core subjects; others at Gilbert High are International Baccalaureate (IB) Diploma Programme candidates who also took AP and art classes alongside their IB studies. There are also students who combined AP courses with Dual Enrollment and Career & Technical Education (CTE) options.
In addition to academics, these semifinalists participated in a range of extracurricular activities such as advanced vocal ensemble/choir, concert and jazz bands, tennis, and sports training classes. Notably, Sofie Theurer from Campo Verde High achieved a perfect score of 36 on the ACT exam—a distinction earned by only about 0.22% of test takers nationally out of more than 1 million participants each year.
Looking ahead to college plans, several semifinalists are preparing for higher education pursuits including a pre-veterinary program at Arizona State University as well as applications to universities like the University of Chicago and Stanford University; one student plans to attend Brigham Young University after completing a church mission. Two other students intend to major in biomedical engineering and data science respectively.
To become finalists for National Merit Scholarships worth nearly $26 million nationwide—including awards sponsored by corporations or colleges—students must submit detailed applications showing strong academic records along with SAT or ACT scores that confirm their earlier test results. Final scholarship recipients will be announced during spring and summer 2025 through national news releases.
More information about academic programs offered by Gilbert Public Schools can be found at https://www.gilbertschools.net/teaching-learning/academic-programs.
