Arizona Students Are National Merit Scholarship Winners

ARIZONA — Arizona students have been named winners for the 2021 corporate-sponsored National Merit Scholarship Program.

The winners were announced on Wednesday and include approximately 1,000 high-school seniors from across the U.S. According to a press release from the National Merit Scholarship Program, the corporate scholarships are financed by about 140 corporations, company foundations and other business organizations.

The awards are renewable for up to four years of undergraduate study and students get a stipend that’s anywhere between $1,000 - $10,000 each year. Some of the awards include a single payment between $2,500-$5,000.

More than 1.5 million students applied for the highly competitive scholarship and the program says that around 7,500 students will go on to win scholarships in 2021 that total $30 million. Winners of the $2,500 scholarships and the college-sponsored scholarships will be announced later this year.

Here are the Arizona's winners for the corporate-sponsored scholarships:

• Weiss M. O'Connor (Anthem Boulder Creek High School)
• Archana Ram (Chandler Hamilton High School)
• Aadi Waghray (Chandler BASIS School)
• Joseph M. Wang (Chandler Hamilton High School)
• Ritvik Vailambhatla (Chandler BASIS School)
• Dante G. Iannello (Litchfield Park Millennium High School)
• Aaron X. Trinh (Oro Valley Canyon Del Oro High School)
• Adelyn Diep Dao (Mesa Desert Ridge High School)
• Sangmita Singh (Mesa BASIS School)
• Alexandra L. Chao (Oro Valley BASIS School)
• Davis A. Ellis (Phoenix BASIS School)
• Aashi R. Gurijala (Phoenix BASIS School)
• Sanya Agarwal (Scottsdale Desert Mountain High School)
• Samuel T. Eckhardt (Scottsdale Saguaro High School)
• Surabhi Sajith (Ahwatukee BASIS School)
• Margot C. Nicholson (Tucson Catalina Foothills High School)
• Robert M. Pawloski (Tucson Catalina Foothills High School)
• Aidan Gee (Tucson Catalina Foothills High School)

A total of 16,000 students were selected as finalists for the scholarships and the final winners are candidates “judged to have the strongest combination of academic skills and achievements, extracurricular accomplishments, and potential for success in rigorous college studies.”