2nd Round Of National Merit Scholarships: McLean Student Winners

MCLEAN, VA — Ten students from McLean are winners of the second round of the National Merit Scholarship, which awards $2,500 to recipients.

The $2,500 National Merit Scholarships are provided by the National Merit Scholarship Corporation's own funds. For each state, the number of winners is proportional to the state’s percentage of the nation’s graduating high school seniors. The program says the winners are the finalists “judged to have the strongest combination of accomplishments, skills and potential for success in rigorous college studies.” There were 66 winners in Virginia.

1.5 million students in around 21,000 high schools were entered into the 2021 National Merit Scholarship Program when they took the 2019 Preliminary SAT as juniors. Around 17,000 semifinalists were chosen based on each state's percentage of graduating high school seniors, representing about 1 percent of the country's high school seniors.

Semifinalists had to submit a scholarship application with an essay, information about extracurricular activities, awards, and leadership positions as well as demonstrate an outstanding academic record and receive a high school official's recommendation. A total of 16,000 students were selected as finalists for the scholarships and the final winners are candidates “judged to have the strongest combination of academic skills and achievements, extracurricular accomplishments, and potential for success in rigorous college studies.”

Here are the McLean winners of the $2,500 scholarships:

• Reevu Adakroy, student at Thomas Jefferson High School for Science and Technology, plans to study engineering
• Subhiksha K. Balaji, student at Thomas Jefferson High School for Science and Technology, plans to study medicine
• Justin J. Choi, student at Thomas Jefferson High School for Science and Technology, plans to study computer engineering
• Ryan Chou, student at McLean High School, plans to study bioengineering
• Joshua W. Jones, student at Langley High School, plans to study physics
• Julia A. Kao-Sowa, student at Thomas Jefferson High School for Science and Technology, plans to study bioengineering
• Andrew J. LaMotta, student at Bullis School, plans to study mathematics
• Marian Qian, student at Thomas Jefferson High School for Science and Technology, plans to study computer science
• Hannah C. Tsai, student at McLean High School, plans to study international relations
• Alex Y. Zhang, student at Thomas Jefferson High School for Science and Technology, plans to study economics

The first round of corporate-sponsored scholarships were announced April 21 and included 28 Virginia winners. Winners of the college-sponsored scholarship will be announced in June and July.

The program says that around 7,500 students will go on to win scholarships that total $30 million in 2021.