22 Lower Merion-Area Students Named National Merit Semifinalists

LOWER MERION, PA – Numerous students public and private school students in the Ardmore-Merion-Wynnewood area have been named semifinalists in the National Merit Scholarship Program.

In total, 22 students in the area made the list.

Lower Merion High School was represented by 14 students, Merion Mercy Academy had five, Friends Central School in Wynnewood two, and Kohelet Yeshiva High School one.

See the full list of Ardmore-Merion-Wynnewood-area National Merit Scholarship Semifinalists below:

Lower Merion High School

• Nisha Arya
• Timothy Askey
• Ariana Bhatia
• Michael Cheng
• Zachary Drapkin
• Jake Gurevitch
• Michel Hua
• Maya Levitan
• Dora Nathans
• Narin Park
• Sebastian Perez-Lopez
• Cathy Si
• Zachary Slogoff
• Robert Zorc

Merion Mercy Academy

• Julia Halas
• Margaret D. Roccato
• Kelly N. Thomas
• Christina S. Walker
• Jordyn E. Young

Friends Central School

• Galen P. Cassidy
• James W. Meyers

Kohelet Yashiva High School

• Shmuel Perl

About 1.6 million juniors in more than 22,000 high schools entered the 2018 National Merit Scholarship Program by taking the 2016 PSAT.

All semifinalists are eligible to receive 7,500 National Merit Scholarships worth $33 million.

The nationwide pool of semifinalists represents less than 1 percent of high school seniors.

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 their earlier performance on the PSAT.

From the approximately 16,000 semifinalists, about 15,000 are expected to be named finalists. Three types of scholarship awards will be offered next year: National Merit $2,500 scholarships, corporate-sponsored scholarships, and college-sponsored scholarships.

Scholarship winners will be announced in spring 2018.

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