2 North Caldwell Students Earn Way Into National Merit Semifinals

NORTH CALDWELL, NJ — A pair of high school students from the Caldwells have earned their way into the semifinals of the 66th annual National Merit Scholarship.

The academically talented seniors will now have a chance to continue in the competition for roughly 7,600 National Merit scholarships, worth more than $30 million that will be offered next spring.

At West Essex High School in North Caldwell, semifinalists included:

• Lakhlani, Ved S.
• Zhang, Julia

More than 1.5 million juniors in about 21,000 high schools entered the 2021 National Merit Scholarship Program by taking the 2019 Preliminary SAT/National Merit Scholarship Qualifying Test (PSAT/NMSQT), which served as an initial screen of program entrants.

To become a finalist, the semifinalist and a high school official must submit a detailed scholarship application, in which they provide information about the semifinalist’s academic record, participation in school and community activities, demonstrated leadership abilities, employment, and honors and awards received. A semifinalist must have an outstanding academic record throughout high school, be endorsed and recommended by a high school official and write an essay to qualify.

Learn more about the annual competition here.

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