15 Newton Students Named National Merit Semifinalists

NEWTON, MA — The National Merit Scholarship Corporation selected 16,000 students from across the country as semifinalists in the 2021 program, including 15 from Newton.

At the beginning of each school year, the officials behind the National Merit Scholarship announce the students who will go on to compete for scholarships in the spring. About 7,600 of the original 16,000 semifinalists win scholarships.

The semifinalist round is determined by the results of the pre-SAT tests taken by about 1.5 million high school juniors nationwide during the previous school year. The list of semifinalists will be winnowed down to about 15,000 by early 2021, and those students will submit applications to get scholarships. Hundreds of students from Massachusetts were selected in the semifinalist round.

The scholarships awarded in the spring range in value, with the highest at $2,500.

The 15 Newton semifinalists:

Newton Country Day School:

• Avery C. Woolbert

Newton South High School:

• Deon M. Chan
• Jonah Goldfarb
• Ian A. Huang
• David S. Kim
• Aidan J. Leonard
• Kiran A. Mak
• Benjamin A. Moshes
• Akshay Ramana
• Ido Shoshani

Newton North High School:

• Daniel M. Bailen
• Vivek M. Dattar
• Claire Y. Deng
• Karen Tong
• Kevin T. Wu

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