East Cobb schools National Merit Scholars

The following students at East Cobb high schools were among the more than 16,000 nationwide named semifinalists for the 2020 class of National Merit Scholarships this week.

They will continue competing for an estimated $31 million in total scholarship money that will be awarded in the spring of 2020. Here are the students, with more details at the end about the National Merit program:

• Lassiter: Eleanor Froula; Claire Halloran; Joseph Kramer; Gabrielle Levitt; Anna Mitchell; Catherine Pereira; Paul Tegethoff;
• Pope: Ada Burris, Sanjeet Harry, Andrew Myers, Yelizaveta Pivnik;
• Sprayberry: Reilly S. Misra;
• Walton: Chanwoo Bae, Jordan Bass, Alec Berger, Andrew Cameron, Daniel Catanese, Anjali Chareddy, Taylor Chiles, Sinead de Cleir, Judith Denning, Julia Dierker, Russell Emerine, Reagan Jacobson, Guy Kemelmakher, Aleem Lakdawala, Andrew Li, Viviana Lu, Nidhi Manikkoth, Kara McKinley, Rushil More, Russell Newton, Erik Pitts, Neeraj Raja, Anant Rajan, Pranav Rajbhandari, Aaron Rieck, Arvind Saligrama, Tara Shabazaz, Eric Simon, Bill Sun, Shiloh Thomas-Wilkinson, Qilin Tong, Ria Uppalapati, Akshin Vemana, Tharun Venkatesan, Madeline Zhang, Zaim Zibran;
• Wheeler: Ann-Marie Abunyewa, Kruthik Alapati, Ava Autera, Charlie Bishop, Patrick Chen, Alessa Cullinan, Rose Jewel, Brian Kent, Emma Mason, Pranav Nedumpurath, Jeremy Payne, Morris Wan, Eric Yao.

Candidates are assessed based on their academic records, as well as participation in school and community activities, demonstrated leadership abilities, employment and honors and awards received. According to the National Merit fact sheet:

“A semifinalist must have an outstanding academic record throughout high school, be endorsed and recommended by a high school offi cial, write an essay, and earn SAT or ACT scores that confirm the student’s earlier performance on the qualifying test.”

About 15,000 students are expected to advance to the finalist level, and will be notified in February. From that group the scholarship winners will be chosen.

Corporations, organizations in local communities and collages offer individual types of scholarships under the National Merit program, and there are state-representational scholarships as well.

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Another 14 students from East Cobb have been awarded National Merit Scholarships, out of 18 for the Cobb County School District (previous recipients were named in April and May).

These scholarships, announced on Wednesday, are financed by U.S. colleges and universities and range between $500 and $2,000. 

The following students are among more than 7,600 who will receive receive scholarship money totalling $31 million by the end of the summer:

• Lassiter: Joshua R. Vollbracht and Carter Brent Johnson;
• Pope: Griffin W. Haarbauer and Maya Nambiar;
• Walton: Thomas DeBoer, Ava Sophia Edmunds, Emma Allison Hunt, Anika Park, David Phillips, Varsha Ramachandra and Illahi S. Virani;
• Wheeler: Andrew J. Mayne, Rebecca G. Simonson and Hanna E. Waltz.

This year, 173 higher education institutions are underwriting Merit Scholarship awards through the National Merit Scholarship Program. Sponsor colleges and universities include 95 private and 78 public institutions in 43 states.

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The National Merit Scholarship Corporation on Wednesday announced that around 2,500 high school seniors around the country were recipients of $2,500 National Merit Scholarships for 2019. Eleven of those recipients are from East Cobb schools.

Students are chosen for having “the combination of accomplishments, skills, and potential for success in rigorous college studies. The number of winners named in each state is proportional to the state’s percentage of the nation’s graduating high school seniors.”

The recipients were chosen by college admissions officers and high school counselors. The winners also indicated their probable career field (in parenthesis) on their applications:

• Campbell: Alexander Eaton, who’s from East Cobb (business administration);
• Lassiter: Dennis G. Goldenberg, with a probable career field in mathematics.
• Walton: William Ellsworth (computer science), Vineet Gangireddy (business administration), Nicholas Hong (neurobiology), Ryan Li (computer science) and Grace Xu (undecided);
• Wheeler: Fianko Buckle (computer science), Caden M. Felton (physics), Arya N. Mevada (intellectual property law) and Keshav K. Shenoy (computer science).

The field began with 15,000 applicants, and more than 7,600 students will receive scholarship money totalling $31 million by the end of the school year.

The NMSC also recently awarded corporate scholarships, which are renewable for up to four years and range from $500 to $10,000, that go to the children of company employees, live in the communities those companies serve or who plan to go into career fields the sponsor wishes to encourage.

The following East Cobb students were awarded those scholarships on April 17:

• Mariah K. Butts, Wheeler (Marsh & McLennan Companies Scholarship), probable career field medicine;
• Eashan Gandotra, Walton (ADP Henry Taub Memorial Scholarship), mathematics;
• Tarunnum Lakdawala, Campbell (PWC Charitable Foundation Scholarship), computer science;
• Zachary Yahn, Wheeler (Georgia-Pacific Foundation Scholarship), electrical engineering.

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