The National Merit Scholarship Corporation has released the names of the first group of winners in the 66th annual National Merit Scholarship program.
Approximately 1,000 high school seniors have won scholarships financed by corporations, company foundations and other business organizations.
The sponsors provide scholarships to children of their employees, residents of communities the company serves, or students who plan to pursue college majors or careers the sponsor wishes to encourage.
Most awards are renewable for up to four years of college undergraduate study and provide stipends that range from $1,000 to $10,000 each year. Some provide a single payment of $2,500 to $5,000.
The announcement marks the first of the awards in 2021 by the National Merit Scholarship Corporation, a nonprofit established in 1955.
It will name recipients of $2,500 scholarships on May 12, and winners of college-sponsored merit scholarships on June 2 and July 12. By the conclusion of this year’s competition, about 7,500 students will have won national merit scholarships worth about $30 million.
More than 1.5 million juniors in about 21,000 high schools entered this year’s program, where they took the preliminary SAT/national merit scholarship qualifying test. It served as an initial screen of applicants, and semifinalists were asked to write an essay and provide information about extracurricular activities, awards and leadership positions.
Semifinalists also needed a recommendation from a high school official. (Here is the list of semifinalists from the San Francisco Bay Area.)
The finalists will be judged on having the strongest combination of academic skills and achievements, extracurricular accomplishments and potential for success in college.
Here are the students from the Bay Area:
ATHERTON:
MENLO-ATHERTON HIGH SCHOOL
Sathvik K. Nori
Alexander J. Waitz
SAN MATEO:
THE NUEVA SCHOOL
Alex Chen
Matthew S. Sakiyama
ARAGON HIGH SCHOOL
Lucy Yin
BELMONT:
CARLMONT HIGH SCHOOL
Jessica G. Ma
SAN JOSE:
NOTRE DAME HIGH SCHOOL
Shruthi Sriram
THE HARKER SCHOOL
Helen Zhu
Fonda M. Hu
VALLEY CHRISTIAN HIGH SCHOOL
Melia-Ann M. Atienza
Annika R. Baktha
LELAND HIGH SCHOOL
Alex Z. Chen
LYNBROOK HIGH SCHOOL
Tiffany Hwang
Stephanie C. Jung
Alisa Lu
SANTA TERESA HIGH SCHOOL
Marek D. Pinto
BASIS INDEPENDENT SILICON VALLEY
Laura Sun
SUNNYVALE:
THE KING’S ACADEMY
Ivy Wu
CUPERTINO:
MONTA VISTA HIGH SCHOOL
Grace Chen
Kevin J. Lin
James Y. Zhang
CUPERTINO HIGH SCHOOL
Preetha S. Kumar
HOMESTEAD HIGH SCHOOL
Joseph H. Huang
DUBLIN:
DUBLIN HIGH SCHOOL
Niveda Mrinali Kasthuri
EL CERRITO:
SUMMIT K2
Clara Hung
SAN FRANCISCO:
PROOF SCHOOL
Jessica J. Zhang
SAN FRANCISCO UNIVERSITY HIGH SCHOOL
Jiho Lee
GALILEO ACADEMY OF SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY
Keyur Ranka
FREMONT:
WASHINGTON HIGH SCHOOL
Kyla K. Brown
MISSION SAN JOSE HIGH SCHOOL
Ellen Fang
AMERICAN HIGH SCHOOL
Tarini Manda
BURLINGAME:
BURLINGAME HIGH SCHOOL
Hubert S. Chen
LIVERMORE:
GRANADA HIGH SCHOOL
Emma J. Laurence
PALO ALTO:
PALO ALTO HIGH SCHOOL
Jacob Ernest Friedman
Neha Girish Joshi
Falecie Q. Wang
Jeffrey Wang
HENRY M. GUNN HIGH SCHOOL
Christo Hristov
PLEASANTON:
FOOTHILL HIGH SCHOOL
Oliver L. Trevor
AMADOR VALLEY HIGH SCHOOL
Kailey H. Wong
SAN RAMON:
DOUGHERTY VALLEY HIGH SCHOOL
Kevin Chen
Sanjana S. Ranganathan
CALIFORNIA HIGH SCHOOL
Bhavya Gupta
SEBASTOPOL:
ANALY HIGH SCHOOL
Fiona R. Irving-Beck