3 Owings Mills Students Named National Merit Scholars

OWINGS MILLS, MD —Several Owings Mills students have been named winners of the 2019 National Merit $2,500 Scholarship. The merit scholar winners, announced Wednesday, were among 2,500 winners nationwide and were 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 $31 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 school in or live in Owings Mills:

Michael K. Bowler

• Probable career field: Mathematics
• School: McDonogh School
• Hometown: Catonsville

Alastair S. Cho

• Probable career field: Medicine
• School: McDonogh School
• Hometown: Reisterstown

Oliver I. Thakar

• Probable career field: Mathematics
• School: The Park School
• Hometown: Owings Mills

The merit scholarship program was created in 1955. Students in grades nine through 12 vie for academic recognition and financial support. About 1.6 million students take the qualifying test every year and about 50,000 of the highest scorers have the chance to be considered.

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.

Patch national staffer Dan Hampton contributed to this report.