2 Centreville Students Receive $2,500 National Merit Scholarships

CENTREVILLE, VA — The second round of 2022 National Merit Scholarship winners was announced on Wednesday, and two Centreville students are in the mix.

About 2,500 students from across the country were chosen to receive National Merit Scholarships worth $2,500. In April, a Centreville student received one of the National Merit Scholarships sponsored by 136 corporations in the first round of awards.

Sixty-four students from Virginia, including two from Centreville, received $2,500 National Merit Scholarships:

• Vishnupriya Alavala of Freedom High School in South Riding is planning a career in the field of neurosurgery.
• Aaryan Rawal of Westfield High School plans to study politics in college.

The $2,500 scholarships are the second round of National Merit Scholarships to be announced for 2022. The winners of the corporate-sponsored scholarships were announced on April 27. Two other rounds of awards are being given in June and July. This will bring the total of college-sponsored awards to about 4,000.

To be entered for the National Merit Scholarship competition, over 1.5 million students were entered as juniors taking the PSAT in 2020. In fall 2021, around 16,000 semifinalists were named based on each state's proportion of graduating seniors. Semifinalists were the top scoring entrants in their states and represent less than 1 percent of seniors in the U.S.

To be considered for finalist status, semifinalists had to submit a detailed scholarship application with an essay and details on extracurricular activities, awards, and leadership positions as well as demonstrate an outstanding academic record and have an endorsement from a high school official.

About 16,000 finalists met requirements for finalists status and were eligible to be chosen for corporate-sponsored, National Merit Scholarship-sponsored and college-sponsored awards. In all, about 7,500 students will win National Merit Scholarships worth nearly $28 million in 2022.

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