National Merit Scholars From Fremont Announced

FREMONT, CA — The next group of 2021 National Merit Scholarship winners include 11 high school students from Fremont.

The National Merit winners from Fremont 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 Fremont in 2021 include:

• Sabrina L. Cai, Mission San Jose High School, University of Chicago, Probable field of study: Consulting
• Chandralekha Garapaty, Irvington High School, University of Texas at Dallas, Probable field of study: Medicine
• Simeon J. Godwin, Fremont Christian High School, USC, Probable field of study: Applied Mathematics
• Aditya Kumar, American High School, USC, Probable field of study: Computer Science
• Kathleen R. Luo, Mission San Jose High School, USC, Probable field of study: Software Engineering
• Serena Mao, Mission San Jose High School, Harvey Mudd College, Probable field of study: Computer Science
• Vigasini Rajaram, Mission San Jose High School, Case Western Reserve University, Probable field of study: Medicine
• Annie Wen, Irvington High School, USC, Probable field of study: Biology
• Kyle N. Wong, Mission San Jose High School, University of Chicago, Probable field of study: Computer Science
• Eric E. Xu, Mission San Jose High School, USC, Probable field of study: Medicine
• Brandon Ye, Irvington High School, USC, Probable field of study: Healthcare

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.

Last month, 13 Fremont students learned that they had received $2,500 scholarships. No students were included in both awards.

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.

— Written by Tim Moran/Patch with additional reporting by Bea Karnes