National Merit Semifinalists

Sixteen Waukee Community School District high school seniors were chosen as National Merit Semifinalists and six were from Northwest High School. 

The National Merit Scholarship Program is an academic scholarship competition for seniors who took the PSAT during their junior year of high school. The competition is for recognition and scholarship opportunities. Every year juniors across the country compete to score in the top 1% of the PSAT which is approximately 16,000 students. 

The six Northwest students selected for this recognition are seniors Avinash Ganti, Emma Zheng, Medha Mandumula, Saanvi Nallu, Nicholas Smith and Vrishank Vennapusa. These outstanding students now have the opportunity to continue on in the competition to become finalists. To become finalists they will have to submit their extracurricular activities, their GPA and a scholarship application. From there they will then be selected to potentially become a finalist.

“Semifinalists now have to fill out an application to become a National Merit Finalist and this application includes stuff like your grades, your extracurriculars and essays. If your application passes the next round you will become a finalist,” stated Zheng. 

About 95% of the semifinalists are expected to become finalists and approximately half of the finalists earn a national merit scholarship and the merit scholar title. The finalists will be announced beginning in April of 2025 and continue till July of that year. The recipients named finalists will join more than 382,000 others who have also earned the Merit Scholar Honor. 

“Northwest’s high quality of education was really helpful because teachers prepare us well for tests. Especially in AP classes, teachers will make sure we are practicing and preparing the right way so we are successful on the AP test. These test taking strategies also apply to other tests like the ACT, SAT and PSAT, and they helped me be successful,” stated Mandumula. 

Not only do the students have academic excellence but they are also very involved in Northwest activities. The six are members of Student Council, Show Choir, a variety of clubs, Theatre Arts and Band. Their commitment to obtaining high academic standards and involvement in Northwest Activities takes good time management skills and lots of dedication.   “I’m in choir, show choir and NHS so you really just have to deal with time management. When show choir season picks up it can be difficult to find time for academics so I just try my best to stay on top of things,” stated Ganti.