{"id":35571,"date":"2025-10-11T17:45:50","date_gmt":"2025-10-11T17:45:50","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.localmedianj.com\/?p=35571"},"modified":"2025-10-11T17:45:50","modified_gmt":"2025-10-11T17:45:50","slug":"westfield-high-school-senior-named-semifinalist-in-2026-national-merit-scholarship-program","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.localmedianj.com\/?p=35571","title":{"rendered":"Westfield High School Senior  Named Semifinalist  in 2026 National Merit Scholarship Program"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Westfield High School is proud to announce that senior Grace Matus has been recognized as a Semifinalist in the 2026 National Merit Scholarship Program.<\/p>\n<p>Grace is among more than 16,000 academically talented high school seniors nationwide who were named Semifinalists in this prestigious program, representing less than one percent of U.S. high school seniors. These students now have the opportunity to continue in the competition for approximately 6,930 National Merit Scholarships worth nearly $26 million, to be awarded next spring.<\/p>\n<p>To advance to the Finalist level, Semifinalists must meet high academic standards and submit a detailed scholarship application that includes information about their academic record, extracurricular activities, leadership, and personal essay, as well as confirmed SAT or ACT scores. About 95 percent of Semifinalists are expected to become Finalists, and roughly half of those will earn the title of National Merit Scholar.<\/p>\n<p>Winners of the 2026 National Merit Scholarships will be announced in stages beginning in April and concluding in July of 2026.<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter size-full wp-image-35572\" src=\"https:\/\/www.localmedianj.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/10\/h_westf-sch-senjor.png\" alt=\"\" width=\"1256\" height=\"712\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.localmedianj.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/10\/h_westf-sch-senjor.png 1256w, https:\/\/www.localmedianj.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/10\/h_westf-sch-senjor-300x170.png 300w, https:\/\/www.localmedianj.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/10\/h_westf-sch-senjor-1024x580.png 1024w, https:\/\/www.localmedianj.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/10\/h_westf-sch-senjor-768x435.png 768w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 1256px) 100vw, 1256px\" \/><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Westfield High School is proud to announce that senior Grace Matus has been recognized as a Semifinalist in the 2026 National Merit Scholarship Program. Grace is among more than 16,000 academically talented high school seniors nationwide who were named Semifinalists in this prestigious program, representing less than one percent of U.S. high school seniors. These [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":13,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[151],"tags":[],"post_flags":[],"class_list":["post-35571","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-westfield-local"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.localmedianj.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/35571","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.localmedianj.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.localmedianj.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.localmedianj.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/13"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.localmedianj.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=35571"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.localmedianj.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/35571\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":35574,"href":"https:\/\/www.localmedianj.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/35571\/revisions\/35574"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.localmedianj.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=35571"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.localmedianj.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=35571"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.localmedianj.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=35571"},{"taxonomy":"post_flag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.localmedianj.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fpost_flags&post=35571"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}