Pleasanton Students Win National Merit Scholarships

PLEASANTON, CA — Seven Pleasanton students were awarded $2500 National Merit Scholarships financed by the National Merit Scholarship Corporation. This included five students from Amador Valley, and two from Foothill.

The students were among 770 high school seniors nationally who advanced to the finalist level. In September, more than 16,000 semifinalists were selected on the basis of their PSAT/National Merit Scholarship Qualifying Test scores. To advance to the finalist round, semifinalists needed to have an outstanding academic record, be endorsed or recommended by a high school official, and earn SAT or ACT scores that confirm their qualifying test performance.

Several different National Merit Scholarships are announced at different points, so more Pleasanton students are likely to be announced as winners in the coming months.

In the most recent round, the Tri-Valley saw five scholarship winners in Danville, five in San Ramon, nine in Dublin, and one in Livermore.

Below are the names, probable career fields, and schools of the Pleasanton winners:

• Aditya Dawar, statistics, Amador Valley
• Spencer Fang, medicine, Amador Valley
• Kathryn Go, pediatrics, Amador Valley
• Jerry Liu, science/research, Amador Valley
• Sahil Mehta, computer science, Amador Valley
• Yash Shelar, computer science, Foothill
• Chloe Xu, undecided, Foothill