Ashburn Students Lead Pack Of 8 Loudoun National Merit Scholars

LOUDOUN COUNTY, VA — Eight students from Loudoun County, including six from Ashburn, won National Merit Scholarships, the National Merit Scholarship Corp. announced Wednesday. The winners from Loudoun County were among 2,500 Merit Scholar designees chosen from a pool of more than 15,000 finalists in the 2020 National Merit Scholarship Program.

Among the six winners from Ashburn, two students plan to make journalism a career, two are likely to pursue a career in computer science, and two are eyeing biomedical engineering as a potential career.

Two of the eight National Merit Scholarship winners attend Rock Ridge High School in Ashburn, the only school in Loudoun with multiple winners.

The National Merit $2,500 Scholarship winners are the finalists in each state judged to have the strongest combination of accomplishments, skills, and potential for success in rigorous college studies. The number of winners named in each state is proportional to the state’s percentage of the nation’s graduating high school seniors.

The eight National Merit Scholarship winners from Loudoun County are:

• Anna K. Chung, Ashburn, Briar Woods High School, National Merit $2,500 Scholarship. Probable career field: Journalism.
• Saketh Gabbita, Ashburn, Thomas Jefferson High School for Science and Technology. National Merit $2,500 Scholarship. Probable career field: Computer science.
• Zachary M. Jacobson, Ashburn, Stone Bridge High School. National Merit $2,500 Scholarship. Probable career field: Computer science.
• Ishaan Kumar, Ashburn, Sidwell Friends School, National Merit $2,500 Scholarship. Probable career field: Biomedical engineering.
• Sarah H. Ong, Ashburn, Rock Ridge High School, National Merit $2,500 Scholarship. Probable career field: Journalism.
• Devanshi P. Radadiya, Ashburn, Rock Ridge High School, National Merit $2,500 Scholarship. Probable career field: Biomedical engineering.
• William C. Forys, Hamilton, Loudoun Valley High School, National Merit $2,500 Scholarship. Probable career field: Microbiology/immunology.
• Eshaan S. Rawat, Chantilly, Freedom High School, National Merit $2,500 Scholarship. Probable career field: Medicine.

This year’s National Merit Scholarship Program began in October 2018 when more than 1.5 million juniors at about 21,000 high schools took the PSAT/NMSQT, which served as an initial screen of program entrants. Last fall, the highest-scoring participants in each state, representing less than one percent of the nation’s high school seniors, were named semifinalists on a state-representational basis. Only these 16,000 Semifinalists had an opportunity to continue in the competition.

By the conclusion of the 2020 program, about 7,600 finalists will have earned the Merit Scholar title and received a total of over $30 million in college scholarships.

The winners are part of the second group of scholarship winners announced in the 2020 National Merit Scholarship Program. On April 22, more than 1,000 recipients of corporate-sponsored Merit Scholarship awards were named.

On June 3 and July 13, approximately 4,100 college-sponsored Merit Scholarship winners will be announced. By the conclusion of this year’s competition, about 7,600 academic champions will have won National Merit Scholarships worth more than $30 million.