National Merit Scholars From Tucson Announced

TUCSON, AZ — The next group of 2021 National Merit Scholarship winners include 90 high school students from Arizona and 10 from Tucson.

The National Merit winners from Tucson are among the more than 3,100 announced nationally this year to receive between $500 and $2,000 scholarships from colleges and universities across the country, the National Merit Scholarship Corp. said in a news release Wednesday.

National Merit Scholarship winners from Tucson in 2021 include:

• Logan E. Chung, University High School, University of Arizona, chemical engineering
• Muhammad A. Dahshan, Catalina Foothills High School, University of Arizona, biomedicine
• John H. Hartman, Canyon Del Oro High School, University of Arizona, linguistics
• Carter C. Hollings, Canyon Del Oro High School, University of Arizona, health care
• Sophia L. Konrad, University High School, University of Arizona, environmental science
• Claire G. Kross, Catalina Foothills High School, University of Rochester, music
• Carol Y. Lu, University High School, Arizona State University, bioengineering
• Jordan E. Rodriguez, University High School, University of Arizona, computer science
• Maxon B. Rubin-Toles, Catalina Foothills High School, Arizona State University, chemical engineering
• Mila E. Tomizuka, University High School, University of Arizona, undecided

The National Merit winners announced this week will have their scholarships funded by the colleges and universities that they will attend. One hundred and sixty colleges and universities — including 85 private and 75 public schools — took part in the merit scholarship program in 2021.

An additional group of college-sponsored National Merit scholars will be announced in July, the scholarship corporation said. This group is part of the approximately 7,500 National Merit scholarship winners who will be selected by the end of 2021. National Merit scholarships via corporate-sponsored awards and the corporation's own $2,500 scholarships were announced earlier in the spring.

RELATED: Arizona Students Are National Merit Scholarship Winners

More than 1.5 million juniors nationally entered the 2021 National Merit scholarship program when they took the 2019 preliminary SAT/National Merit scholarship qualifying test, the corporation said. About 17,000 semifinalists, fewer than 1 percent of the country's high school seniors, were announced last fall.

Semifinalists had to write an essay and detail their extracurricular activities, awards and leadership positions to become a finalist. About half of the 16,000 finalists will be merit scholars by the end of the year, the corporation said.