La Jolla Students Receive National Merit Scholarship

LA JOLLA, CA — Thirty students of San Diego County schools — including two students from La Jolla —were named National Merit Scholarship Corp. award winners this year.

The 2,500 Merit Scholars who each won a $2,500 scholarship were chosen from a pool of 16,000 finalists, according to the corporation.

Winners were judged based on their academic record, SAT and PSAT scores, participation in school and community activities, recommendations and essays. A team of college admissions officers and high school counselors chose the finalists.

Merit Scholars included the following San Diego County students:

• Joseph Colarusso of Chula Vista, Eastlake High School
• Sophia Epley of Chula Vista, Francis Parker School
• Paloma Ronis von Helms of Coronado, Coronado High School
• Richard Chao of La Jolla, La Jolla High School
• Marjorie MacDonald, of La Jolla, La Jolla High School
• Hafeez Merali of Lakeside, El Capitan High School
• Zahir Ahmed of San Diego, Del Norte High School
• Shayan Azmoodeh of San Diego, Canyon Crest Academy
• Shree Gopalakrishnan of San Diego, Scripps Ranch High School
• Emily Kang of San Diego, Canyon Crest Academy
• Dhruv Kumar of San Diego, Rancho Bernardo High School
• Heidi Lau of San Diego, Westview High School
• Susan Lee of San Diego, Canyon Crest Academy
• Erika Li of San Diego, Canyon Crest Academy
• Jessica Lin of San Diego, Canyon Crest Academy
• Lauren Pickard of San Diego, Rancho Bernardo High School
• Elden Ren of San Diego, Canyon Crest Academy
• Liam Yile Tan of San Diego, Canyon Crest Academy
• Emily Tianshi of San Diego, The Cambridge School
• Jeffrey Wang of San Diego, The Bishop's School
• Kelly Wang of San Diego, Torrey Pines High School
• Lindsay Wright of San Diego, Del Norte High School
• Abigail Wu of San Diego, The Cambridge School
• Michael Wu of San Diego, Westview High School
• Sophie Wu of San Diego, Canyon Crest Academy
• Vivian Wu of San Diego, Canyon Crest Academy
• Maxwell Yao of San Diego, Canyon Crest Academy
• Cynthia Zhang of San Diego, Del Norte High School
• Boston Moreland of San Marcos, La Jolla Country Day School
• Vivek Vijayakumar of San Marcos, San Marcos High School

This announcement marked the second round of National Merit Scholarship awardees in 2021. Additional winners will be announced June 2 and July 12.

The National Merit Scholarship Corp. said it will award a total of $30 million to 7,500 "academic champions" by this fall.

Patch editors Courtney Teague and Kristina Houck contributed to this report.