2021 National Merit Scholars Include Several Eastside Students

WASHINGTON — The next group of 2021 National Merit Scholarship winners includes more than 30 high school students from Washington.

The National Merit winners from the Evergreen State are 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.

National Merit Scholarship winners from Eastside schools in 2021 include:

• Sofia G. Albrecht
  • School: Interlake High School, Bellevue
  • Probable career field: Education
  • College: St. Olaf College
• Xiaorong A. Guo
  • School: Interlake High School, Bellevue
  • Probable career field: Psychology
  • College: Tufts University
• Richard Z. Yang
  • School: Newport High School, Bellevue
  • Probable career field: Economics
  • College: University of Chicago
• Alexander M. Tanimoto
  • School: Interlake High School, Bellevue
  • Probable career field: Computer science
  • College: University of Maryland
• Evan C. Landau
  • School: Bear Creek School, Redmond
  • Probable career field: Engineering
  • College: Purdue University
• Abhinav Diddee
  • School: Nikola Tesla STEM, Redmond
  • Probable career field: Electrical engineering
  • College: Northeastern University
• Connor W. Williams
  • School: Issaquah High School
  • Probable career field: Politics
  • College: Colorado College
• Andrey Piterkin
  • School: International Community School, Kirkland
  • Probable career field: Computer science
  • College: Northeastern University
• Jacob Grosof
  • School: Mercer Island High School
  • Probable career field: Public policy
  • College: Brandeis University
• William J. Spencer
  • School: Mercer Island High School
  • Probable career field: Computer science
  • College: University of Chicago
• Elliot A. Smith
  • School: Woodinville High School
  • Probable career field: Environmental engineering
  • College: University of Southern California
• Eleanor R. Harris
  • School: Eastlake High School, Sammamish
  • Probable career field: Medicine
  • College: Western Reserve 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.

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.