Fifteen students from Jefferson were recently named winners of the National Merit Scholarship and received $2500 in scholarship money.

The recognized students are seniors Dhruv Bansal, Laura Brouckman, Amy Chen, Sarah Eltinge, Amani Farooque, Suhas Gondi, Lauren Huang, Kat Lee, Yash Maniar, Joseph Park, Jennifer Peng, Kalki Seksaria, Cody Silverman, Nalini Singh and Robert Wharton.

“I feel honored to have received this scholarship. I’d forgotten about it since submitting my application in October, so I was taken completely by surprise when I got the letter in the mail,” Chen said.

Students who are applying for the scholarship were required to maintain extremely high grades throughout high school. The scholarship is also heavily based on PSAT scores from junior year, and semifinalists are required to fill out an application and write an essay in October of their senior year.

“The application hit during college app season, so I was glad that there were many areas of overlap. For the most part I copied straight from my college applications,” Chen said.