26 Bridgewater Seniors Are National Merit Semi-Finalists

BRIDGEWATER, NJ — 26 Bridgewater students have been named semi-finalists for the 2021 National Merit Scholarship Program.

The semi-finalists were announced on Sept. 9 and include approximately 16,000 high-school seniors that will go on to compete for the scholarships that will be offered next spring. According to a press release from the National Merit Scholarship Program, over 90 percent of the semi-finalists will be named as finalists for the scholarship. Of those finalists, about half will win a scholarship.

More than 1.5 million students applied for the highly competitive scholarship and the semi-finalists represent less than 1 percent of all high-school seniors in the U.S. For each state, the number of semi-finalists is proportional to that state's percentage of the total graduating seniors in the country.

Here are the Bridgewater semi-finalists for the scholarship:

ACADEMY FOR HEALTH AND MEDICAL SCIENCES

• Hari S. Kumar
• Gabriel D. Meyer

BRIDGEWATER - RARITAN REGIONAL HIGH SCHOOL

• Shreya Ashok
• Shivani S. Chawla
• Jimmy Y. Chen
• Jeffrey Cheng
• Jiya A. Ghadigaonkar
• Siddharth Ghosh Roy
• Anya Gu
• Jenna Y. Gu
• Ishan Hemmige
• Matthew L. Hou
• Patrick Jiao
• Suhas Julapalli
• Anika Kathuria
• Prajit Kundu
• Mark M. Kuo
• Mark D. Rydberg
• Jonathan Shi
• Navya Sinha
• Mrinmayi Ubgade
• Ananya Warang
• Helen Xie
• Emma Xiong
• Eric R. Yao
• Geoffrey Zhao

To become a finalist, the program explains that students and a high-school official must submit a detailed application. The application must contain information about a student's academic record, leadership abilities, the honors and awards they've received and more.

National Merit Scholarship winners of 2021 will be announced in four nationwide news
releases beginning in April and concluding in July.

Have a news tip? Email alexis.tarrazi@patch.com.

Get Patch breaking news alerts sent right to your phone with our new app. Download here.