21 Princeton Students Named National Merit Scholarship Semifinalists

PRINCETON, NJ – Twenty-one Princeton students were named semifinalists in the 2023 National Merit Scholarship program.

The students were among 16,000 semifinalists announced from schools across the nation. The high school seniors now have an opportunity to continue in the competition for some 7,250 National Merit Scholarships worth nearly $28 million that will be offered next spring.

To be considered for an award, the semifinalists must fulfill several requirements to advance to the finalist level of the competition.

More than 15,000 are expected to advance to the finalist level, National Merit Scholarship said.

High school juniors entered the 2023 National Merit Scholarship Program by taking the 2021 Preliminary SAT/National Merit Scholarship Qualifying Test. The pool of semifinalists represent less than one percent of U.S. high school seniors, National Merit Scholarship said.

To become a Finalist, students and a high school official must submit a detailed scholarship application, and provide information about the student’s academic record, participation in school and community activities, leadership abilities, employment, honors and awards. 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 or ACT scores that confirm their performance on the qualifying test.

Here are the students who qualified this year:

PRINCETON THE HUN SCHOOL

• Kaijun Feng
• Megan Wu

PRINCETON DAY SCHOOL

• Dhruv Balaji
• Navaneeth K. Rajan
• Gavin H. Yang

PRINCETON H. S.

• Armaan M. Ahmed
• Christopher M. Bao
• Perryn S. Chang
• Rohun N. Chivate
• Jonathan Gu
• Jiakun Huang
• Ethan T. Lee
• Han Li
• James X. Li
• Michelle Peng
• Sophia Y. Song
• Connor S. Stewart
• Luke Tong
• Matthew Wu
• Allison Zhou

WILBERFORCE SCHOOL

• Anneka J. Steen

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