3 Upcounty Students Named National Merit Scholars

GERMANTOWN, MD — Three Upcounty students have been named winners of the 2020 National Merit $2,500 Scholarship. A total of 24 students from Montgomery County schools were among the 2,500 winners nationwide announced Wednesday, selected from a pool of more than 15,000 finalists.

This is the second group of National Merit Scholarship winners to be announced this year. In April, more than 1,000 recipients of the corporate-sponsored Merit Scholarship were named.

Additional winners will be named in June and July. By the end of the year, about 7,600 students will have won merit scholarships totaling more than $30 million. The money can be put toward any regionally accredited college or university in America.

A panel of college admissions officers and high school counselors judged the students based on their grades, difficulty of courses, standardized test scores, contributions and leadership both in school and in the community, an essay, and a recommendation from a high school official.

Here are the winners who attend schools in Clarksburg, Germantown, and Poolesville.

Sadhana S. Lolla

• Probable career field: Computer Science

• School: Poolesville High School

Kamila K. Melikova

• Probable career field: Economics
• School: Northwest High School

Zoe A. Tishaev

• Probable career field: Public Policy (Education Reform)

• School: Clarksburg High School

The merit scholarship program was created in 1955. Students in grades nine through 12 vie for academic recognition and financial support.

This year's program began in October 2018. More than 1.5 million juniors at approximately 21,000 high schools took the Preliminary SAT/National Merit Scholarship Qualifying Test (PSAT/NMSQT), which served as an initial screen of program entrants, according to officials. Only 16,000 of the highest scorers had the opportunity to continue in this competition.

The number of winners in each state was proportional to the state's share of the nation's graduating high school seniors, according to the National Merit Scholarship Corporation.