Lawrenceville School Seniors Named National Merit Scholarship Semifinalists

LAWRENCEVILLE, NJ — A total of 16 seniors at the Lawrenceville School seniors are among 16,000 national semifinalists in this year’s National Merit Scholarship Program.

• Veronica Bochenek
• Jesse Brewer
• Eric Cheng
• Jonathan S. Ge
• Kristina C. Gu
• Priya L. Kumar
• Sankalp K. Kumar
• Sophia Li
• Nicole S. Lim
• Alan D. Lin
• Bradford J. Lin
• Alexander Liu
• Sonia M. Shah
• Neal Vasireddi
• James Wellemeyer
• Grace Xiong

They remain in contention for some 7,500 National Merit Scholarships worth more than $32 million that will be offered next spring. About 90 percent of semifinalists are expected to make it to the finals, and about half of the finalists will win a National Merit Scholarship, according to NMSC.

The competition began with about 1.6 million juniors in more than 22,000 high schools taking the 2016 Preliminary SAT/National Merit Scholarship Qualifying Test (PSAT/NMSQT), which served as an initial screen of program entrants.

The seniors are among the group of semifinalists, which is less than 1 percent of U.S. high school seniors, that scored among the highest in the state on the exam. The number of semifinalists in a state is proportional to the state’s percentage of the national total of graduating seniors.

To advance to the finals, the students, along with the school, must submit a detailed scholarship application, in which they provide information about their academic records, participation in school and community activities, demonstrated leadership abilities, employment, and honors and awards received.

A semifinalist must have an outstanding academic record throughout high school, be endorsed and recommended by a high school official, write an essay, and earn SAT scores that confirm the student’s earlier performance on the qualifying test.

Finalists will be announced in February. Three types of scholarships will be awarded in the spring:

• Every finalist will compete for one of 2,500 National Merit $2,500 scholarships that will be awarded on a state-representational basis.
• About 1,000 corporate-sponsored Merit Scholarship awards will be provided by approximately 250 corporations and business organizations for finalists who meet their specified criteria, such as children of the grantor’s employees or residents of communities where sponsor plants or offices are located.
• Additionally, about 190 colleges and universities are expected to finance about 3,900 college-sponsored Merit Scholarship awards for finalists who will attend the sponsor institution.

The NMSC advises that scholarships are awarded based on individual student achievement, and are not meant to be used to measure the quality or effectiveness of education within a school, system, or state.
For more information about the competition, visit www.nationalmerit.org.

Patch file photo