Eleven local high school seniors are among the 325 in California and 2,500 nationwide who have won $2,500 National Merit Scholarships.
The list, released on May 7, is the second of four rounds of winners.
In the first round, around 830 were announced on April 23 as winning corporate-sponsored scholarships. The list included four seniors from Del Norte High School. The exact monetary amount of their scholarships was not released.
The college-sponsored Merit Scholarship awards will be announced on June 4 and July 14, according to program officials.
In all, more than 6,930 students are expected to win awards in the 70th annual competition, with scholarships worth a combined total of $26 million, officials said in a press release.
Ten in this latest group are from Poway Unified School District. They are:
• Trevor B. Chen of Westview High, who is interested in computer science.
• Zinia Khattar of Del Norte High, who is interested in molecular biology.
• Hudson N. Kim of Westview High, who is interested in computer science.
• Raymond Sheng of Del Norte High, who is interested in electrical engineering.
• Gabriel J. Stewart of Poway High, who is interested in engineering.
• Sophia Haoyu Tang of Del Norte High, who is interested in environmental engineering.
• Pukaphol Thienpreecha of Rancho Bernardo High, who is interested in engineering.
• Dishti Wadhwani of Del Norte High, who is interested in chemical engineering.
• Kate Xu of Del Norte High, who is interested in environmental engineering.
• Kyle X. Zheng of Westview High, who is interested in computer science.
Other local winners from the area include:
• Zachary Sinha of ZIP code 92128, who attends The Cambridge School and is interested in academia.
The finalists started their journey in the competition as high school juniors when they took the 2023 Preliminary SAT/National Merit Scholarship Qualifying Test. Last September, more than 16,000 students were named semifinalists for being the highest-scoring entrants from each state, with proportions based on each state’s total of graduating seniors. The semifinalists represented less than 1% of the nation’s seniors.
To be considered as a finalist, they had to complete a detailed application, which included an essay and information on their extracurricular activities, awards and leadership positions. They also had to submit their academic record, an endorsement from a school official and earn SAT or ACT scores that confirmed their earlier test performance. Over 15,000 met finalist requirements.
Out of these, more than 6,930 finalists will be awarded scholarships
