National Merit Scholarships

Wheeler, Lassiter students earn National Merit Scholarship

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East Cobb National Merit Scholarship Program

The first of the Class of 2021 National Merit Scholarships have been announced, and two students from East Cobb are among the 1,000 recipients.

These are corporate-sponsored scholarships financed by 140 corporations, company foundations, and other business organizations.

The recipients are children of company employees or residents in communities served by those companies, or who plan to pursue college majors or careers the sponsor wishes to encourage.

The scholarships range from $1,000 to $10,000.

Vishaal Kareti of Wheeler High School, who is interested in studying computer science, is the recipient of a Bristol-Myers Squibb Foundation, Inc. compnay scholarship,

Victoria Ann Dutkiewicz, whose career field is undecided, has earned a James E. Casey Scholarship, which goes to children of United Parcel Service employees.

The National Merit Scholarship Corporation will name more recipients in May, June and July.

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East Cobb students named National Merit Scholarship semifinalists

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A total of 64 East Cobb students have been named National Merit Scholarship semifinalists.National Merit Scholarships, East Cobb students

They come from Pope, Lassiter, Wheeler and Walton, which has a total of 31 semifinalists, the second-most for any school in the state, according to the Cobb County School District.

The CCSD said 80 students from seven of its schools have made the next round of the process, including Campbell, Kennesaw Mountain and North Cobb.

Below are the names of the East Cobb semifinalists, followed by more information about the program, and how the process works, according to the National Merit Scholarship Corporation:

Lassiter High School
Sophia D. Babish
Eric Chow
Dennis G. Goldenberg
Peter R. Jacobson
Carter B. Johnson
Carter H. Kubes
Peyton R. Lamb
Delia K. Pung
Audrey J. Safir
Dylan Walters

Pope High School
Jacob T. Evans
Griffin W. Haarbauer
Edward C. Kokan
Maya Nambiar
Olivia D. Popovich

Walton High School
Albert Chen
David Cornell
Alison Cumberledge
Thomas DeBoer
Ava Edmunds
William Ellsworth
Eashan Gandotra
Vineet Gangireddy
Nicholas Hong
Emma Hunt
Jeffrey Key
Darren Kosen
Varun Krishnaswamy
Grace Lee
Ryan Li
Jesse Liu
Arundhati Mahendrakar
Isha Palakurthy
Anika Park
Sara Patyi
David Phillips
Varsha Ramachandra
Alice Shen
Daniel Shu
Elizabeth Sims
Albert Ting
Illahi Virani
Jayson Wu
Kevin Wu
Grace Xu
Margare Zhang

Wheeler High School 
Saman A. Bhamani
Fianko Buckle
Mariah K. Butts
Caden M. Felton
Ayush Goyal
Adith Guna
Vanessa I. Leonardo
Andrew J. Mayne
Arya N. Mevada
Shivam A. Patel
Abhinav Piplani
Shraddha Sekhar
Keshav K. Shenoy
Rebecca G. Simonson
Hanna E. Waltz
David M. Weinberg
Zachary R. Yahn

Over 1.6 million juniors in about 22,000 high schools entered the 2019 National Merit Scholarship Program by taking the 2017 Preliminary SAT/National Merit Scholarship Qualifying Test (PSAT/NMSQT®), which served as an initial screen of program entrants.

The nationwide pool of semifinalists represents less than one percent of U.S. high school seniors and includes the highest-scoring entrants in each state. The number of semifinalists in a state is proportional to the state’s percentage of the national total of graduating seniors. More than 90 percent of the semifinalists are expected to be named National Merit Scholar finalists in February.

To be finalists, semifinalists and their high school must submit a detailed scholarship application, in which they provide information about the semifinalist’s academic record, participation in school and community activities, demonstrated leadership abilities, employment, and honors and awards received. A semifinalist must have an outstanding academic record throughout high school, be endorsed and recommended by a high school official, write an essay, and earn SAT® scores that confirm the student’s earlier performance on the qualifying test.

Merit Scholar designees are selected on the basis of their skills, accomplishments, and potential for success in rigorous college studies, without regard to gender, race, ethnic origin, or religious preference.

Three types of National Merit Scholarships will be offered in the spring of 2019. Every finalist will compete for one of 2,500 National Merit® $2500 Scholarships that will be awarded on a state-representational basis.

About 1,000 corporate-sponsored Merit Scholarship awards will be provided by approximately 230 corporations and business organizations for finalists who meet their specified criteria, such as children of the grantor’s employees or residents of communities where sponsor plants or offices are located. In addition, about 180 colleges and universities are expected to finance some 4,000 college-sponsored Merit Scholarship awards
for finalists who will attend the sponsor institution.

The 2019 National Merit Scholarship winners will be announced in four nationwide news releases beginning in April and concluding in July. These scholarship recipients will join some 338,000 other distinguished young people who have earned the Merit Scholar title.

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