Meet Northfield's National Merit Finalists: Merrill Lutsky

Editor's note: Out of 1.5 million applicants, five Northfield seniors are in a group of 15,000 National Merit finalists. Each student has a chance at one of several scholarship opportunities. This week, Northfield Patch features those five students, with one profile running each day Monday-Friday.

Name: Merrill Lutsky

Parents: Neil Lutsky and Constance Walker

Post-graduation plans:  Attending Harvard or Princeton University (still undecided)

Favorite high school moment: My favorite moment of high school has to be opening the Harvard acceptance email; the validation of everything I’ve worked for so far in life was truly overwhelming.

Toughest moment (you're willing to share): No specific moment stands out, but I’ve certainly had to handle the usual disappointments, anxieties, and challenges of high school.

Senior quote: I sincerely appreciate the work and dedication of my teachers and extracurricular coaches and advisers, their contributions cannot be recognized enough.

How did you get here? Reflect on what it took to get a month from graduation.

I think three major factors stand out to me as driving forces behind my academic development. First and foremost, I think that my innate interests in math and science from an early age, arising from my early exposure to intellectual topics through my both my parents and the broader Carleton community have served as a driving force behind my academic focus. The opportunities for travel abroad and the discussions of world events and discoveries resulting from growing up in this environment were central to the intellectual achievement and awareness that I’ve strived to achieve throughout my life so far. 

Secondly, I’ve had several important educational opportunities in Northfield. Attending Prairie Creek Community School and learning under the guidance of Simon Tyler and Caroline Jones to name a few was the greatest force in developing my interests, curiosity, and value of knowledge early in life. At the Northfield Middle School I again had the tremendous pleasure of learning from educators who encouraged and further developed my educational background, notably Abbie and Steven Meierbachtol in mathematics, Dan Kust, Amy Allin, and Craig Croone in sciences, and Curtis Mikkelson in geography.

I again enjoyed these opportunities in high school, notably learning from Jodie Saxton-West and Rebecca Messer in science, Troy Cohrs in English, Chris Holmquist in art, Mark Thornton in history, and Professor Jon Armel (Carleton) in mathematics. I’ve also had the pleasure of working with Professor Susan Singer as both the coach of the NHS Science Olympiad team and as the leader of the biology research group she let me participate in this past summer, both of which were invaluable academic experiences. I am truly grateful to have had the opportunity to learn from such individuals, and I would not have any of the opportunities available to me at present without their support. 

Lastly, I think luck has played a major role in my arriving at my current position, from the array of opportunities I’ve had available throughout my life in Northfield, my extracurricular successes and failures, my college admissions and rejections, and even my selection as a National Merit Scholar. It is the synthesis of these three factors that I think best explains how I got to my current point in life.

What do you see in the future? Do you want to travel? Get done with college as soon as possible? What are your ambitions?

I plan to concentrate in a field of math or science in college and pursue a career that uses my mathematics and science skills and background. What I see myself doing for a career is applying scientific, economic, and mathematical principles and knowledge to address significant contemporary problems (e.g., global warming) and, I hope, to contribute to human welfare.

I haven’t yet determined exactly how I will go about accomplishing this as far as college majors/minors and graduate school plans go, but I intend to focus strongly on math and the sciences with a particular emphasis on research and hands-on experience. I will likely attend a PhD program after completing my undergraduate studies, and I may continue to work on basic research or, possibly, go into the private sector with a Silicon Valley-type startup company (if I ever come up with a research application I believe could be commercially viable and socially beneficial).