9 Lexington Teens Named National Merit Scholars

LEXINGTON, MA – Nine Lexington teens have been named 2017 National Merit Scholars, the National Merit Scholarship Corporation announced this week. The students, selected from a pool of more than 15,000 finalists, will each receive a $2,500 scholarship from the organization.

Eight of the students attend Lexington High School and one is a student at Buckingham Browne & Nichols School in Cambridge. Below is a look at Lexington's National Merit Scholarship winners.

• Eli G. Haber, Probable career field: Linguistics, LHS
• Vishnu Murale, Probable career field: Computer Science, Buckingham Browne and Nichols
• Yibo B. Pu, Probable career field: Computer Science, LHS
• Edoardo Spolaore, Probable career field: Science/Research, LHS
• Krishna Suraj, Probable career field: Computer Science, LHS
• Catherine L. Wang, Probable career field: Neurobiology, LHS
• Rachel X. Zhang, Probable career field: Engineering, LHS
• Ruth Zheng, Probable career field: Law, LHS
• Karen Zhou, Probable career field: Engineering, LHS

National Merit Scholarship winners are the students in each state judged to have the strongest combination of accomplishments, skills, and potential for success in rigorous college studies, according to an overview of the program. The number of winners named in each state is proportional to the state’s percentage of the nation’s graduating high school seniors.

Winners were selected by a committee of college admissions officers and high school counselors based on academic record, the difficulty level of the subjects studied, grades earned, scores from two standardized tests, contributions and leadership in school, community activities, an essay and a recommendation written by a high school official.

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