Zhendi Wang (12)
How did you prepare for the Practice SAT/National Merit Scholarship Qualifying Test?
“I just did a bunch of practice tests,” Wang said. “There was one PSAT practice test in the [College Board] Bluebook app, and then there were four more SAT practice tests in the Bluebook app. I just did all of them … and looked over the [the questions] I did wrong and just kept doing them over and over.”
What are your post-secondary plans?
“I’m trying to major in computer and mechanical engineering — double major — and I’m trying to minor in electrical engineering,” Wang said. “I’ve always had an interest in animals and their movement. It allowed me to join robotics and I just saw a lot of interesting [aspects within] robotics, [just] like the people in robotics. I went to [the] Worlds [Championship] like two years ago. It was like a bunch of people from all over the world, and that’s when I realized mechanical engineering was like … a good spot to meet new people and gain new perspectives on the world.”
Saanvi Kumar (12)
Do you play any sports?
“I play badminton,” Kumar said. “[I run the] Badminton club.”
Do you participate in any extracurriculars?
“I enjoy embroidery [and] I enjoy writing novels,” Kumar said. “During … the COVID summer, it was pretty long, [so] I wanted to try something new. I started with sewing. It was not that fun, so I looked up a few embroidery tutorials, and I got stuff together and I’ve just been embroidering ever since. Writing I’ve done since I was really young. I like embroidering for people on their birthdays. I’ve published books before. The first [book] I wrote when I was pretty young; that [book] was [published] through my parents. It’s like a local publisher, so [my parents] help[ed] me out with that.”
Floren Feng (12)
How did you prepare for the PSAT/NMSQT?
“I did a lot of practice beforehand,” Feng said. “[My family] moved [when I was] in sixth grade, and then we didn’t have Wi-Fi at our house, so our dad would bring us these big packets of SAT [prep] to do every day. So we started practicing from … a young age. And then after that I just didn’t really practice.”
Do you play any instruments?
“I play piano and … I dabble in ukulele,” Feng said. “Piano … I started when I was like 5 years old because my parents signed me up for lessons. I quit lessons at like 13, and then I just play songs that I like now. I got a ukulele for Christmas … maybe two years ago.”
Do you have any fun facts about yourself?
“I once owned two guinea pigs. They’re named Ten and Donna after the ‘Doctor Who’ characters. They didn’t die … they’re back with their foster mom.”
Alan Ji (12)
Do you have any interesting stories from your extracurriculars?
“My first year of robotics [as a sophomore] was actually pretty memorable,” Ji said. “So, we had like, the underdog story … we went into this competition — I believe it was [the] Magnolia [Regional]. It was our first [time as a team, and] we were … the bottom team [because] our bot did not work. But last minute … we actually made our bot finally start working … So we’re standing there [in] the finals — in the finals, after the final qualification matches … the winning eight teams of those qualification [matches] get to pick their partner for the actual final finals. And so like, the last pick — 8th pick — we get picked. We’re surprised … We’re still kind of down, we’re like, ‘We’re gonna drag this team down,’ but lo and behold we actually get first place in that match. So we qualify for the actual world championship, and then we go to … [Houston,] Texas … for the championship, and we just had an all-around great time.”
Do you have any other hobbies?
“I do [math and Spanish] tutoring and various hackathons … or coding competitions,” Ji said.
Arihant Jain (12)
Do you have any hobbies?
“I love writing a lot of poetry,” Jain said. “That’s like one of my favorite things to do. I … like coding a lot, so I do a bunch of coding.”
Do you have any interesting stories from those extracurriculars?
“I also like to do hiking,” Jain said. “I went to India, which is like my parents’ hometown, during … [the] winter of my 11th grade year. And we traveled to some remote place in Northern India, and there was … no internet … it was just people, you couldn’t use your phone or anything. And there was a pilgrimage part of my religion called Mount Shikharji, which is basically like a super big mountain. It’s around a 19-mile hike up a mountain, and then you also have to climb back down. And the thing was that since it was religious, we couldn’t wear shoes on the hike. It was a very … unique experience because … my cousins and I who went on the trip, we were basically just going barefoot. And the thing is that since it was religious, we also couldn’t eat on the way up. … So imagine hiking 19 miles uphill, and it was super high. If you go up there, your ears will start to pop because of the pressure, that’s how high it was. [We were] barefoot, no food and you could only drink water. That was one of my best hiking experiences and I also love to hike in general.”
What are your post-secondary plans?
“I want to major in something related to computer science,” Jain said. “I’m applying to a bunch of places [on] the east coast and west coast. I was really interested [in computer science] at a very young age. I know, like a lot of my friends, they got interested [in computer science much] later on, but I had … a really influential uncle who was really good at computer science, and he made some really cool stuff, and I just found it really fascinating how we can use computers to automate our daily lives.”
Allen Guo (12)
Do you have any other hobbies?
“I’m a big Tetris player,” Guo said. “I do art … it’s like a major extracurricular [for me]. [I’m] a big painter. I do drawings sometimes, but very much a big painter. [I use] primarily acrylic [paint].”
Do you have any interesting stories from those extracurriculars?
“I’m in AP Research this year [and] I’m doing my research project on Tetris,” Guo said. “The only reason that happened is because I made a joke once and I was like ‘Hey, what if I just do Tetris as my AP Research project’ and — I forgot whether it was Ms. Young or one of my friends — [but they were] like ‘That’s actually not a bad idea’ and I was [like] ‘Okay.’”
Do you have any fun facts about yourself?
“I don’t think people know that I’m like a big stationary nerd,” Guo said. “I have like a whole collection of pens, pencils that I have bought over time. I have like, I don’t know, 10 different types of lead at home, that kinda thing. I really like precise tools … I don’t think people really know that I’m … into those kinds of things.”
Take a look at the other National Merit Semi-finalists here: https://whitestationscroll.net/10862/student-life/national-merit-semi-finalists-2/
