Six Beverly Hills Students Named as National Merit Scholar Semifinalist

BEVERLY HILLS, CA — Six student were named as this year’s National Merit Scholarship semifinalists, the National Merit Scholarship Corporation announced.

The six are Jordan A. Grode,Yong K. Kim, Pin-Chian Lee, Samuel H. Schwartz, Justin R. Wu and Yunchao Zhang of Beverly Hills High School.

They are among the 16,000 chosen based on their scores on the Preliminary Scholastic Aptitude Test/National Merit Scholarship Qualifying Test.

Of those, only about 15,000 are expected to advance to the finalist level in February, and in February they will be notified of this designation. About half will win National Merit Scholarships worth about $33 million that will be offered next spring.

The semifinalists representing less than one percent of U.S. high school seniors, includes the highest scoring entrants in each state. The number of semifinalists in a state is proportional to the state’s percentage of the national total of graduating seniors.

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