Holmdel High Senior Chosen As Nat'l Merit Scholar

HOLMDEL, NJ — Claudia Zhang, a senior at Holmdel High School, is among the select few New Jersey high school students to be selected for a National Merit scholarship.

There were 223 winners in the Garden State this year. Zhang was chosen from a talent pool of more than 15,000 outstanding finalists nationwide.

Zhang has appeared in the local Holmdel Patch several times in her high school career: When she and the rest of the Holmdel High girls' varsity golf team won the Shore Conference Championship in 2018 (for the second year in a row), and when she was accepted into a STEM program in New York City as a high school junior.

Zhang plans to attend Williams College in the fall.

Along with Zhang, Holmdel High School seniors Emily Levonas, Hannah Lin and Daniel Yuan were named semifinalists in this year’s program while nineteen other students earned recognition as commended students. They are: Rohaan Ahmad, Nicholas Bauman, Sophie Birk, Jeremy Bodycomb, Derek Chan, Yu Chung, Eliot Gunawardana, Joseph Helbock, Carolyn Jiang, Rebecca Liu, Jeffrey Luk, Anika Patel. Musa Shaikh, Daniel Shnitkind, Tom Sui, Sophia Taverna, Owen Walor, Daniel Wang and Justin Zhang.

The number of winners named in each state is proportional to the state’s percentage of the nation’s graduating high school seniors.

The National Merit Scholarship committee is composed of college admissions officers as well as high school counselors. Included is a review of the student’s academic record, including difficulty level of subjects studied and grades earned, PSAT scores, contributions and leadership in school and community activities; an essay written by the finalist and a recommendation written by a high school official.