4 Fremont Students Awarded National Merit Scholarships

FREMONT, CA — Neha Gondra, Ashley Lee, Kevin Ma, and Laura Zhou of Fremont have been awarded scholarships from universities through the National Merit Scholarship Corporation.

Gondra will attend the University of Alabama to study surgical medicine.

Lee will attend Northeastern University in Massachusetts to study law.

Ma will attend Purdue in Indiana to study computer science.

Zhou will also attend Purdue to study computer science.

Gondra, Ma and Zhou are all graduates of Mission San Jose High School in Fremont, while Lee is a graduate of American High School. All are part of Fremont Unified School District.

These four Fremont high school graduates are among over 1,000 students nationwide to receive a scholarship in this final list of awards for 2021, joining more than 3,100 other college-sponsored award recipients who were announced in June.

Each sponsor college selects scholarship winners from among the finalists in the National Merit Scholarship Program who will attend their institution.

Students receive between $500 and $2,000 annually for up to four years of undergraduate study at the college financing the scholarship. The exact awards of the Fremont students is not available.

This year, 160 colleges and universities sponsored over 4,100 Merit Scholarship awards.
This final group of winners brings the number of 2021 National Merit Scholars to more than 7,500, worth a total of nearly $30 million.

In addition to college-sponsored awards, two other types of National Merit Scholarships were offered—2,500 National Merit $2500 Scholarships, for which all finalists competed, and about 1,000 corporate-sponsored Merit Scholarship awards for finalists who met criteria specified by their grantor organizations.

The scholarship winners began their journey when over 1.5 million juniors at some 21,000 high schools took the 2019 Preliminary SAT/National Merit Scholarship Qualifying Test. That was whittled down to 17,000 semifinalists last fall. Semifinalists were the highest-scoring program entrants in each state and represented less than one percent of the nation’s seniors.

To become a finalist, each semifinalist had to complete a detailed scholarship application, which included writing an essay, describing leadership positions and contributions in school and community activities.

Some 16,000 attained finalist standing, and about half were chosen to receive National Merit Scholarships.

Also See:

• National Merit Scholars From Fremont Announced (June list)
  
• 13 Fremont Students Receive National Merit Scholarships (May list)
  
• Fremont Teen Chosen For Prestigious Presidential Scholars Program
  
• Fremont Woman Named Rhodes Scholar
  
• 4 Fremont High Schools Ranked In U.S. News & World Report's Top
  
• Fremont School Named 2021 California Distinguished School