Five Holmdel Students Earn National Merit Scholarships

HOLMDEL, NJ – Several students from Holmdel have earned National Merit Scholarships, the National Merit Scholarship Corporation announced. Five students from two high schools were awarded the prestigious honors.

One recent graduate from Holmdel High School and two graduates from High Technology High School were awarded with National Merit $2500 Scholarships earlier this year.

Emily S. Jiang, Claudia S. Zhang and Sophie S. Zhang won National Merit $2,500 Scholarships. The Holmdel teens are one of 7,600 high school seniors across the country to win the awards. Jiang aims to pursue a career in applied mathematics, while Claudia S. Zhang has her sights set on chemistry. Sophie S. Zhang looks to study science and research.

Funding for the single-payment National Merit $2500 Scholarships comes mostly from NMSC finances, as well as corporations and company foundations that sponsor awards. Scholars may use their awards at any regionally accredited U.S. college or university.

Holmdel resident Arjun Collur Menon, a recent graduate at High Technology High School in Lincroft, was awarded a College-Sponsored National Merit Scholarship, receiving the National Merit Vanderbilt University Scholarship. Menon aims to pursue a degree in music at Vanderbilt University in Tennessee next fall.

Adrienne Yu, also a High Technology High School graduate, was named for the National Merit Rutgers, The State University Of New Jersey Scholarship. Yu plans to study information technology at Rutgers next fall.

Over 1.5 million high school juniors from nearly 21,000 high schools entered the 2020 National Merit Scholarship Program when they took the 2018 Preliminary SAT/National Merit Scholarship Qualifying Test.

Last fall, approximately 16,000 Semifinalists were named in numbers proportional to each state's percentage of the national total of graduating high school seniors. Semifinalists were the highest-scoring program entrants in each state and represented less than one percent of the nation's seniors.

Of the Semifinalist group, approximately 15,000 met requirements for the Finalist title, and about half of the Finalists were named Merit Scholarship winners in 2020. In total, 7,500 winners received over $30 million in college scholarships.

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