Walton, Wheeler students headline National Merit scholar lists

The first batch of National Merit Scholarship semifinalists for the 2021-22 school year have been announced, and they include quite a few students from Walton and Wheeler High schools in East Cobb.

The full list of East Cobb students is below; here’s some background on the program, which has 16,000 semifinalists nationwide:

These academically talented high school seniors have an opportunity to continue in the competition for some 7,500 National Merit Scholarships worth nearly $30 million that will be offered next spring.
To be considered for a Merit Scholarship® award, Semifinalists must fulfill several requirements to advance to the Finalist level of the competition.

To become a Finalist, the Semifinalist and a high school offi cial 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 or ACT scores that confirm the student’s earlier performance on the qualifying test.
Three types of National Merit Scholarships will be offered in the spring of 2022. 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 220 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.
National Merit Scholarship winners of 2022 will be announced in four nationwide news releases beginning in April and concluding in July. These scholarship recipients will join more than 362,000 other distinguished young people who have earned the Merit Scholar title.

INDEPENDENT STUDIES AT JOHNSON FERRY

William L. Reese

LASSITER H. S.

Faaris Hussain

POPE H. S.

Patrick M. Astorga; Oluwaseminire A. Oloyede; Madeleine M. Stewart

SPRAYBERRY H. S.

Bradley Scott

WALTON H. S.

Zain M. Akram; Mark Arshavsky; Stephanie Bergman; Lawrence J. Cai; Wonho Choi; Fevin Felix; Fiona P. Guo; Sahil J. Handa; Katelyn L. Henry; Ryann A. Jacobson; Saloni Jain; Chinmay P. Joshi; Aadi Kadi; Sungwon Kim; Abhinav Kona; Abhishek Kona; Maxwell E. Leamy; Daniel Y. Liu; Vikas Malepati; Ana E. Mocklar; Cynthia Peng; Imaan A. Pirani; Neerav Ravirala; Aryan Roy; Advaith Shivaram; Jonathan Shu; Nairita S. Siddiqui; Lawrence A. Thomas; Kunling Tong; Abhay R. Vittal; Joseph M. Walter; Asad Yamin; Emma L. Zeng; Franklin S. Zhao

WHEELER H. S.

Rhea Baghel; Evan Bauer; Smera V. Bhatia; Pranav R. Devarinti; Arjun J. Dewan; Carson D. Felton; Angela M. Francis; Archishma V. Goli; Kyle A. Hampton; Samyukta S. Iyer; Sujit Iyer; William P. Jewel; Charlie J. Jin; Kavita Kar; Nelitha E. Kulasiri; Nishka Mirkhelkar; Achyutan T. Narayanan; Vijay Shastri; Chirag Shetty; Emma G. Teng; Satya S. Tetali