Nine North Penn High School Students Are Semifinalists In National Merit Scholarship

NORTH PENN — Nine high school students in North Penn have been named as semifinalists in the 67th Annual National Merit Scholarship Program, the school district announced this week.

The nine were among 1,600 students nationwide who are named semifinalists in the program, which included a total of 1.5 million who took the qualifying test, according to the North Penn School District.

“These academically talented high school seniors will now have an opportunity to continue in the competition for more than 7,500 National Merit Scholarships worth more than $30 million,” the school district said in a statement. “Students named as finalists will be selected in April, May, June and July based on their ability to show exceptional academic talent and potential for success in rigorous college studies.”

The National Merit Scholarship Program is an academic competition for recognition and scholarships that began back in 1955, according to the North Penn School District.

High school students who are interested in participating must take a Preliminary SAT/National Merit Scholarship Qualifying Test, which is an initial screening of the 1.5 million entrants each year. The students must also meet other participation requirements.

North Penn said that in late September, a list of “Commended Students” who placed among the top five percentile in the 2020 qualifying test would be released to the public.

The following North Penn High School students were named as semifinalists:

Anna Chen

Edward Kong

Arushi Mittal

Naman J. Parikh

David Shin

Sulin Shin

Ananya Venkatachalam

Anthony Wang

Eric Wang

More information about the National Merit Scholarship program can be found here.