6 Wayne Students Named National Merit Semifinalists

Six Wayne students have been named semifinalists in the National Merit Scholarship Program.

The Wayne Hills students are: Emily Chazen, Alicia Darwin, and Chamaka Kalutota. Ellen Guo, David Padover, Jusung Park are the students from Wayne Valley.

“These six students are examples of academic excellence and wonderful representatives of our school district,” said Superintendent Ray Gonzalez. “They should be extremely proud of their accomplishments — I certainly am.”

Students must submit a detailed application, essay, and information on any volunteer activities to be considered for a scholarship.

Approximately 16,000 students were named semifinalists year. About half of them will earn part of the $32 million in scholarships available. Students earn the chance for a scholarship based how they scored on the 2012 Preliminary SAT.

Less than one percent of high school seniors are named semifinalists.

Twenty-five Wayne residents were named commended students under the program. 

From Wayne Hills: Caitlin Albanese, Erica Applebaum, Frank Fazio, Alyssa Hanel, Austin Hong, Seung Hwang, William Jeon, Marwa Khan, Yong Kim, Alyssa Loffredo, Savanah Ng, and Brooke Rantas. 

From Wayne Valley High School: Laura Baldino, Alex Lyu,
Jade Donaldson, Kanchan Railkar, Mackenzie Faber, Kevin Shen, Kevin Greer, Yungton Yang, Mona Hassanein, Alex Yu, Kathleen Hopkins, and, Jacob Levine.

— Have a question or news tip? Contact editor Daniel Hubbard at Daniel.Hubbard@patch.com or find us on Facebook and Twitter. For news straight to your inbox, sign up for our daily newsletter.