This year, there were 22 students in the Rockwood School District picked as finalists in the National Merit Scholarship Competition. In order to enter the competition, the students had to take a Preliminary SAT/National Merit Scholarship Qualifying Test and meet the participation requirements.

The winners are chosen from a list of finalists depending on their abilities and skills. Eleven students from Lafayette were chosen to be finalists, more than any other Rockwood School District High School.

Senior David Wang was one of the finalists chosen among the other 15,000 across the nation. Over 1.5 million juniors took the test in 2012.

To prepare for the test, Wang took a summer prep SAT class that helped him a lot.

“It just felt really awesome,” Wang said when asked how he felt when he found out he was a finalist. As of right now, he does not know where he will be going to college, but he does know that the scholarship money will help.

All of the finalists were competing for single payment scholarships which are awarded by the state.

Here is a list of all of the Lafayette National Merit finalists:

Saba Bajwa

Ellie Bednarek

Kevin Dick

Derek Legenzoff

Alan Lu

Seth Ludwig

Daniel Martin

Kathleen Newcomer

Julie Sun

Vivek Vallurupalli

David Wang