Tag: National Merit

[UPDATED] 2022 National Merit winner count totals 13

The National Merit Scholarship Corporation issued its final list of 2022 National Merit winners today, identifying 2022 graduates Kate Olsen, Vienna Parnell and Bodhisatta Saha as winners of college-sponsored scholarships. Congratulations to all 13 of Harker’s 2022 National Merit scholarship winners!

June 2, 2022:

Catherine He ’22 was named a winner of a National Merit Scholarship yesterday in the third round of winners in the 2022 National Merit Scholarship Program, becoming the 10th winner from the Class of 2022. The scholarships awarded in this round were financed by US colleges and universities and awarded by officials from the sponsor colleges to finalists who plan to attend the institution providing the scholarship. He’s scholarship was provided by the University of Southern California. The next and final round of National Merit Scholarship winners will be announced July 11.

May 11, 2022:

Today, seniors Alice Feng, Arnav Gupta, Victoria Han, Rishab Parthasarathy, Sasvath Ramachandran and William Zhao were named winners of $2,500 scholarships in the 2022 National Merit Scholarship Program. These awards were granted to finalists who, according to NMSC, possessed “the strongest combination of accomplishments, skills and potential for success in rigorous college studies.”

The next winners announcement is scheduled for June.

Apr. 27, 2022

Seniors Cady Chen, Irene Yuan and Emily Zhou were among the first round of 2022 National Merit Scholars announced today. All 1,000 winners in this round, selected from those who reached the finalist level in this year’s competition, received corporate-sponsored scholarships. All three of the Harker winners were awarded scholarships sponsored by Nvidia Corporation.

The National Merit Scholarship Corporation will announce more winners over the next few months until the final list of winners is revealed in July. This story will be updated as additional Harker winners are announced.

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52 students, more than 25% of senior class, named National Merit semifinalists

Today, the National Merit Scholarship Corporation announced that 52 Harker seniors, more than 25 percent of the Class of 2022, were named semifinalists in the National Merit Scholarship Program. Semifinalists represent less than 1 percent of high school students who took the 2020 Preliminary SAT/National Merit Qualifying Test as juniors. They become finalists by submitting a scholarship application that includes their academic record, a summary of participation in school activities and awards they’ve received.

This year’s semifinalists are:

Malar Bala, Laszlo Bollyky, Erica Cai, Teresa Cai, Cady Chen, Charles Ding, Alice Feng, Adheet Ganesh, Yvan Grinspan, Arnav Gupta, Elvis Han, Victoria Han, Catherine He, Mark Hu, Angelina Yuzifovich, Sinaya Joshi, Vishnu Kannan, Saahas Kohli , Anirudh Kotamraju, Aidan Lincke, Alex Liou, Michelle Liu, Aaron Lo, Kavita Murthy, Kate Olsen, Sujith Pakala, Muthu Panchanatham, Vienna Parnell, Rishab Parthasarathy, Anishka Raina, Sasvath Ramachandran, Bodhi Saha, Dhruv Saoji, Yejin Song, Cindy Su, Aditya Tagore, Emily Tan, Keshiv Tandon, Zeel Thakkar, Rohan Thakur, Nicole Tian, Michael Tran, Pranav Varmaraja, Austin Wang, Daniel Wu, Esther Wu, Alina Yuan, Irene Yuan, April Zhang, William Zhao, Emily Zhou and Gloria Zhu.

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20 Harker grads named 2021 National Merit winners

July 12:

Recent graduates Vivian Jin and Katie Li were today announced as winners of college-sponsored scholarships in the final round of National Merit Scholars announced in the 2021 National Merit Scholarship Program. The announcement brings the total number of Harker winners to 20. Congratulations to all of the students who were recognized in this year’s program!

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June 2:

Utkarsh Priyam ’21 was today announced as another winner of a National Merit College-Sponsored Scholarship from Purdue University, bringing the total number of Harker winners this year to 18. These scholarships are funded by US colleges and universities and provide winners with funding for their undergraduate education for up to four years at the institution financing the scholarship. In April, Priyam was named a semifinalist in the 2021 Presidential Scholars competition. The next round of National Merit scholarship winners is slated to be announced July 12. 

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May 19:

An additional 15 seniors won National Merit scholarships last week, bringing the total number of winners so far to 17. This round of $2,500 scholarships was awarded to National Merit finalists in each state who were assessed according to their academic achievements and their potential to do well in college. The winners were: Manasa Bhimaraju, Preston Ellis, Jason Lin, Andrew Lu, Claire Luo, Arya Maheshwari, Akshay Manglik, Krishay Mukhija, Aditya Singhvi, Andrew Sun, Betsy Tian, Daniel Wang, N Wang, Sidra Xu and Russell Yang.

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April 30:

Yesterday, the National Merit Scholarship Corporation announced winners of corporate-sponsored scholarships in the 2021 National Merit Scholarship Program. Seniors Fonda Hu and Helen Zhu were named winners in this round, each receiving scholarships from NVidia. Corporate sponsors award scholarships to National Merit finalists who are children of employees, are residents of the companies’ local communities or are pursuing careers in industries the sponsor supports. 

This is the first round of winners announced in this year’s National Merit Scholarship Program. This story will be updated if and when more Harker winners become known.

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42 seniors named National Merit semifinalists, 22% of senior class

Last week, the National Scholarship Corporation named 42 Harker seniors as semifinalists in the 2021 National Merit Scholarship Program, representing 22 percent of the senior class. Of the more than 1.5 million high school juniors who entered the program last year by taking the PSAT/NMSQT, only 1 percent were named semifinalists. Finalists are determined through an application process in which the semifinalist and an official from the semifinalist’s school submit an application detailing criteria such as the semifinalist’s academic record, community participation and awards received. 

This year’s semifinalists are:

Nilisha Baid, Karanvir Bhasin, Manasa Bhimaraju, Elvin Chen, Matthew Chung, Emma Dionne, Preston Ellis, William Fan, Maya Franz, Alissa Gao, Annesh Dastidar, Pascal Han, Fonda Hu, Vivian Jin, Allison John, Katie Li, Jason Lin, Andrew Lu, Claire Luo, Arya Maheshwari, Akshay Manglik, Krishay Mukhija, Vaishnavi Murari, James Pflaging, Utkarsh Priyam, Michelle Si, Aditya Singhvi, Srinath Somasundaram, Andrew Sun, Aditya Tadimeti, Betsy Tian, Annamma Vazhaeparambil, Daniel Wang, N Wang, Sidra Xu, Russell Yang, Sara Yen, Nichoals Yi, Avery Young, Alex Zhai, Weixuan Zhang and Helen Zhu.

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[UPDATED] Final 2020 National Merit winner announcement brings Harker total to 23

July 13, 2020:

In the final winner announcement of the 2020 National Merit Scholarship Program, 2020 graduate Zara Vakath was named a winner of college-sponsored scholarship from Claremont McKenna College. The final total of Harker scholarship winners stands at 23. Congratulations to all this year’s winners!

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June 3, 2020:

On Wednesday, recent graduates Quentin Clark, Eric Fang, Lila Gorman, Phillip Han, Nathan Sudeep and Anthony Xu were named winners of college-sponsored scholarships in the 2020 National Merit Scholarship Program, bringing the total number of Harker scholarship winners to 22. Another round of winners is set to be announced in July.

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May 13, 2020:

Today, the National Merit Scholarship Corporation announced the second round of winners in the 2020 National Merit Scholarship Program, and 11 Harker seniors are among them. They are: Kathy Fang, David Feng, Jeffrey Fung, Alyssa Huang, Sahil Jain, Allison Jia, Eileen Li, Kyle Li, Jack Pearce, Thomas Rainow and Bryan Wang. These students are among 2,500 high school seniors chosen to receive National Merit $2,500 Scholarships. More winners are set to be announced in June and July.

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April 28, 2020:

Last week, the National Merit Scholarship Corporation announced the first round of winners of 2020 National Merit scholarships, and seniors Rohan Cherukuri, Mahika Halepete, Madison Huynh, Jessica Jiang and Nellie Tonev were named winners of corporate-sponsored scholarships. Each of the students had reached the finalist portion of the 2020 National Merit Scholarship Competition. The next three rounds of winners will be announced in May, June and July.

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Sept. 24, 2019:

Earlier this month, 63 seniors were named semifinalists in the 2020 National Merit Scholarship Program, placing them among the 16,000 high school students who make up less than 1 percent of the more than 1.5 million students who entered the contest as juniors last year. Students enter each year by taking the Preliminary SAT/National Merit Scholarship Qualifying Test (PSAT/NMSQT). This year’s National Merit semifinalists are:

Prerana Acharyya, Jai Bahri, Nakul Bajaj, Martin Bourdy, Katelyn Chen, Evan Cheng, Andrew Cheplyansky, Rohan Cherukrui, Quentin Clark, Rishi Dange, Eric Fang, Kathy Fang, David Feng, Finn Frankis, Lauren Fu, Jeffrey Fung, Lila Gorman, Ellen Guo, Mahika Halepete, Phillip Han, Alyysa Huang, Madison Huynh, Rashmi Iyer, Sahil Jain, Allison Jia, Jessica Jiang, Matthew Jin, Annebelle Ju, Montek Kalsi, Naviya Kapadia, Jatin Kohli, Jeffrey Kwan, Shyl Lamba, Max Lee, Eileen Li, Kyle Li, Emily Liu, Carolyn Lu, Vani Mohindra, Kalyan Narayanan, Rakesh Nori, Sana Pandey, Jack Pearce, Thomas Rainow, Sanjay Rajasekharan, Amla Rashingkar, Chaitanya Ravuri, Sachin Shah, Nikhil Sharma, Rohan Sonecha, Nathan Sudeep, Christine Tang, Michael Tang, Anika Tiwari, Nellie Tonev, Jin Tuan, Nerine Uyanik, Zara Vakath, Bryan Wang, Nathan Wang, Anthony Xu, Jacqueline Yang and Jeffrey Yang.

Additionally, 72 seniors were named commended students for their outstanding performance on the PSAT/NMSQT:

Arjun Akkiraju, Kai Ming Ang, Kenya Aridomi, Ekdatha Arramreddy, Vibha Arramreddy, Anvi Banga, Ryan Brown, Darshan Chahal, Gabriel Chai, Eva Chang, Cynthia Chen, Emily Chen, Kevin Chen, Emily Cheng, Henry Cuningham, Kaitlyn Dai, Reiya Das, Jeremy Ding, Mihir Dixit, Sidharth Dudyala, Roni Gagneja, Nina Gee, Anna Gert, Aditi Ghalsasi, Avi Gulati, Aarzu Gupta, Grace Hajjar, Jack Hansen, Richard Hu, Grace Huang, Jedd Hui, Vishnu Jaisim, Arnav Joshi, Nikhita Karra, Mahi Kolla, Sejal Krishnan, Asmit Kumar, Allison Lee, Emma Li, Bennett Liu, Jeffrey Liu, Annie Ma, Grant Miner, Naveen Mirapuri, Shomrik Mondal, Natashad Moorajani, Arushi Nety, Karthik Nukala, Jason Pan, Gina Partridge, Sriya Prathfuri, William Rainow, Ahsna Reddy, Riva Saksena, Anu Selvaraj, Mihir Sharma, Anjali Sheth, Rani Sheth, Alexander Shing, Anthony Shing, Neal Sidhu, Arun Sundaresan, Larissa Tyagi, Smriti Vaidyanathan, Joshua Valluru, Ramanand Vegesna, Katelyn Vo, Jessie Wang, Henry Wiese, Alicia Xu, Catherine Zhao and Joshua Zhou.

Altogether, Harker’s National Merit semifinalists and commended students comprise 68% of the Class of 2020!

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[UPDATED] 11 students win National Merit scholarships, nearly 60 percent of class recognized overall

July 15, 2019:

Earlier today, Krish Kapadia ’19 was named among the last round of 2019 National Merit scholarship winners, with a college-sponsored scholarship from Boston University. This win brings the total number of winners from Harker to 11. Congratulations to all who were recognized!

July 5, 2019:

Last month, the National Merit Scholarship Corporation announced the first round of 2019 college-sponsored National Merit scholarships. Recent graduates Nishka Ayyar, Joshua Broweleit and Amelia Huchley were named as winners in this round, and each will receive between $500 and $2,000 for as many as four years at the undergraduate level from the universities they plan to attend. Another round of college-sponsored scholarships will be announced on July 15. 

May 9, 2019:

Seniors Ayush Alag, Enya Lu, Rithvik Panchapakesan, Akshay Ravoor, Katherine Tian, Alex Yu and Katherine Zhang were among the second round of winners announced in the 2019 National Merit Scholarship Program yesterday. Each student won a $2,500 scholarship from the National Merit Scholarship Program. The next two rounds of winners will be announced in June and July. Congratulations!

Sept. 25, 2018:

In mid-September, the National Merit Scholarship Corporation identified 68 Harker seniors as Commended Students in the 2019 National Merit Scholarship Competition. This designation places them among the 50,000 highest-scoring students (about 3 percent) from the 1.6 million who took the 2017 Preliminary SAT/National Merit Qualifying Test. Combined with the 43 seniors recently named semifinalists, this news brings the total number of seniors recognized by National Merit to 111, or 57 percent of the Class of 2019.

Harker’s 2019 National Merit Commended Students are:

Ryan Adolf, Hasan Awais, Sumantra Banerjee, Raymond Banke, Sayon Biswas, Donna Boucher, Alycia Cary, Nicole Chen, Ishani Cheshire, Shreya Dasari, Rithika Devarakonda, Nikhil Dharmaraj, Elizaveta Egorova, Aryana Far, Sukrit Ganesh, Carl Gross, Karan Gupta, Ria Gupta, Riya Gupta, Zachary Hoffman, Constance Horng, Jason Huang, Shafieen Ibrahim, Cameron Jones, Abhinav Joshi, Damini Kaushik, Arjun Kilaru, Prameela Kottapalli, Hannah Lak, Taylor Lam, Christopher Leafstrand, Angela Li, Katrina Liou, Erin Liu, Katrina Liu, Adrian Ma, Mathew Mammen, Ihita Mandal, David Melisso, Sara Min, Sonal Muthal, Suraj Pakala, Brian Park, Nishant Ravi, Alexander Rule, Viveka Saraiya, Karli Sharp, Kelly Shen, Andrea Simonian, Sian Smith, Alexander Teplov, Alyson Wang, Anna Wang, Catherine Wang, Cindy Wang, Clarissa Wang, Eric Wang, Gene Wang, Johnny Wang, Michael Wang, Richard Wang, Shania Wang, Henry Wong, Tiffany Wong, Zachary Wong, Kelsey Wu, Laura Wu and Tiffany Zhao.

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Twenty-two percent of seniors named National Merit semifinalists

Yesterday, the National Merit Scholarship Corporation announced that 43 Harker seniors – 22 percent of the class of 2019 – were named semifinalists in the 2019 National Merit Scholarship Program.

This year’s semifinalists are:

Ayush Alag, Nishka Ayyar, Logan Bhamidipaty, Robert Bloomquist, Joshua Broweleit, Timothy Chang, Christie Chen, Pamela Duke, Kai Franz, Lilia Gonzales, Rose Guan, Matthew Hajjar, Haris Hosseini, Amelia Huchley, Krish Kapadia, Jacob Kim, Noah Lincke, Enya Lu, Leon Lu, Joel Manning, Jay Menon, Puneet Nayyar, Cedric Nowatzyk, Rithvik Panchapakesan, Ayush Pancholy, Jerry Peng, Meghna Phalke, Anika Rajamani, Ashwin Rammohan, Akshay Ravoor, Ashwin Reddy, Ruhi Sayana, Keval Shah, Kaushik Shivakumar, Neha Tallapragada, Katherine Tian, Timothy Wang, Alexander Wloka, Connie Xu, Helen Yang, Alexander Young, Alexander Yu and Katherine Zhang.

Semifinalists represent the top 1 percent – about 16,000 – of the 1.6 million students who entered the National Merit Scholarship Program in 2017 after taking the Preliminary SAT/National Merit Scholarship Qualifying Test. Students who are to become finalists will be notified of their advancement in February.

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[UPDATED] Four more National Merit winners named, bringing total to 17

UPDATED: June 6, 2018

The next round of winners in the 2018 National Merit Scholarship Competition was announced today, this time for college-sponsored merit scholarships. Recent graduates Akhil Arun, Matthew Lee, Jacob Ohana and Patrick Zhong were among those listed as winners, bringing Harker’s total of National Merit scholarship winners for the year up to 17. 

Eight more Harker seniors were named winners in the 2018 National Merit Scholarship Competition last week. The National Merit Scholarship Corporation identified Megan Tjandrasuwita, Jerry Chen, Gwyneth Chen, Morgan Douglas, Anooshree Sengupta, Andrew Semenza, Kaitlin Hsu and Swapnil Garg as $2,500 scholarship winners. 

These students and other Bay Area National Merit winners were mentioned in a story by the San Jose Mercury News, published Friday.

Last week, the National Merit Scholarship Corporation announced that Divija Bhimaraju, David Wen, Adrian Chu, Megan Huynh and Amy Jin,  all grade 12, were recipients of corporate-sponsored scholarships in the 2018 National Merit Scholarship Competition. This is the first round of awardees in this year’s program, and more winners will be announced over the next three months.

In September, 46 seniors – roughly 25 percent of the Class of 2018 – were named National Merit semifinalists, placing them in the top 1 percent nationwide among students who took the Preliminary SAT/National Merit Scholarship Qualifying Test in their junior year.

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Forty-six seniors named semifinalists in 2018 National Merit Scholarship Program

The National Merit Scholarship Corporation announced today that 46 Harker seniors, about 25 percent of the Class of 2018, were named semifinalists in the 2018 National Merit Scholarship Program. Of the 1.6 million high school students who entered the program last year by taking the Preliminary SAT/National Merit Scholarship Qualifying Test, about 16,000 – or just 1 percent – became semifinalists.

Congratulations to this year’s semifinalists, who are as follows:

Akhil Arun, Anika Banga, Praveen Batra, Divija Bhimaraju, Megan Cardosi, Emily Chen, Gwyneth Chen, Jerry Chen, Kathleen Cheng, Adrian Chu, Peter Connors, Morgan Douglas, Amy Dunphy, Shaan Gagneja, Swapnil Garg, Anastasiya Grebin, Jacqueline He, Adrian Hernandez, Kaitlin Hsu, Charlotte Huang, Julia Huang, Megan Huynh, Seunghoon Jeong, Amy Jin, Sumer Kohli, Maya Kumar, Matthew Lee, Linus Li, Edgar Lin, Millie Lin, Serena Lu, Rahul Mehta, Alexandra Michael, Jacob Ohana, Vignesh Panchanatham, Neelesh Ramachandran, Andrew Semenza, Anooshree Sengupta, Sahana Srinivasan, Megan Tjandrasuwita, Eric Tran, Alexander Wang, David Wen, Derek Yen, Shaya Zarkesh and Patrick Zhong.

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10 Harker graduates named 2017 National Merit Scholarship Winners

Harker 2017 graduates Steven Cao, Divya Rajasekharan, Sandip Nirmel, Angela Kim, Andrew Rule, Kai-Siang Ang, David Zhu, Anuva Mittal, Amrita Singh and Albert Xu were named 2017 National Merit Scholarship Winners. Cao, Rajasekharan, Nirmel, Kim, Rule, Ang and Zhu were awarded National Merit $2,500 Scholarships, a one-time prize that can be put toward their studies at any accredited U.S. college or university. Mittal, Singh and Xu received college-sponsored Merit Scholarships, which provide an annual amount of between $500 and $2,000 for up to four years.

In September 2016, 45 Harker seniors were named National Merit Semifinalists and 65 were recognized as Commended Students.

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