National Merit Scholar From Lamorinda Announced

LAMORINDA, CA — The next group of 2021 National Merit Scholarship winners include one high school student from Orinda.

The National Merit winner is 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.

The National Merit Scholarship winner from Orinda in 2021 is Radman T. Zarbock who attends the Athenian School in Danville. Zarbock's probable career field is Aerospace Engineering. The scholarship was awarded by Purdue University.

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, three Lamorinda students learned that they had won $2,500 scholarships —

• Jamie E. Lattin, Lafayette, Probable career field: Archaeology, Acalanes H. S.
• Noel J. Seo, Moraga, Probable career field: Undecided, Campolindo H. S.
• Jack E. Armstrong, Orinda, Probable career field: Computer Science, homeschooled

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