First round of winners announced
The National Merit Scholarship Corporation has released the names of the first group of winners in the 66th annual National Merit Scholarship program.
About 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 Schol
arship Corp., a nonprofit established in 1955.
It will name recipients of $2,500 scholarships May 12, and winners of collegesponsored merit scholarships 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.
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