Nine Ward Melville High School seniors have been named among 16,000 semifinalists in the 65th annual National Merit Scholarship Program, and now have the opportunity to continue in the competition for some 7,600 National Merit Scholarships worth more than $31 million that will be offered next spring. 

To be considered for a National Merit Scholarship award, these students must fulfill several requirements to advance to the final level of the competition, including completing a detailed scholarship application. This application focuses not only on the student’s academic record, but also their participation in school and community activities, leadership abilities, employment and honors or awards received. It must also be accompanied by a recommendation letter from the high school. More than 90% of the semifinalists are expected to attain finalist standing, and about half of the finalists will win a National Merit Scholarship, earning the Merit Scholar title. 

Over 1.5 million juniors in about 21,000 high schools entered the 2020 National Merit Scholarship Program by taking the 2018 Preliminary SAT/National Merit Scholarship Qualifying Test, which served as an initial screen of program entrants. The nationwide pool of semifinalists represents less than 1% of U.S. high school seniors. 

The Three Village Central School District congratulates the following students for being named a National Merit semifinalist: 

Jake Butkevich
Matthew Fiorella
Katherine Liu
Keene Lu
Christopher Moore
William Sun
Benjamin Templeton
Justin Zhang
Rebecca Zhang