6 More Vienna Students Win National Merit Scholarships

The National Merit Scholarship Corporation announced 2,500 National Merit Scholarship winners Tuesday, May 8. Six seniors from Vienna are among the recipients receiving $2,500 scholarships sponsored by the corporation's own funds.

Sudharsan Balasubramani of Madison High School will likely pursue biomedical engineering with the scholarship, Sophia E. Dort of Oakcrest School plans to study medicine, Katherine C. Du of Thomas Jefferson High School for Science and Technology plans to study bioinformatics and Nikhil Sardana of TJHSST will pursue theoretical physics.

Rahul V. Gupta of Sidwell Friends School and Tracey E. Mills of The Potomac School also received scholarships. The six are among 65 from Virginia chosen for the National Merit $2,500 Scholarships.

These winners were selected by a committee of college admissions officers and high school counselors, who reviewed academic records, difficulty level of subjects studied, grades earned, scores from two standardized tests, school and community activities an essay and a recommendation written by a high school official. Recipients can use their awards at any regionally accredited U.S. college or university of their choice.

Sponsored the National Merit Scholarship Corporation, the awards go to high school seniors. 1,000 other recipients of corporate-sponsored Merit Scholarship were announced in April, and 4,000 college-sponsored Merit Scholarships will be announced on June 6 and July 16. By the conclusion of this year’s competition, about 7,500 students will be awarded scholarships worth more than $31 million.

Samantha M. Lane of Madison High School and Grant P. Martin of Marshall High School of Vienna were announced as corporate-sponsored scholarship winners in April.

Over 1.6 million students were entered into the competition by taking the Preliminary SATs as juniors, which narrowed down to 15,000 finalists. Semifinalists submitted additional applications with an essay, information about extracurricular activities, leadership positions and awards, and a recommendation from a school official.

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