The 17-year-old high school senior says becoming a National Merit Scholar was on her radar — sort of. “Being a national merit scholar was just kind of on my radar a little bit. The National Merit Scholarship Program honors individual students who show exceptional academic ability and potential for success in rigorous college studies. The students will compete for some 6,930 National Merit Scholarships worth nearly $26 million that will be offered next spring.”Zhang says she’s always thought of herself as a good student, but that doesn’t mean it wasn’t a lot of hard work, too. “I'm definitely interested in the medical field,” she says.