Whiz Kid of the Week: Snigdha Nandipati

Name, Age: Snigdha Nandipati, 12

School: Francis Parker School

Accomplishment: Nandipati won the San Diego County Scripps National Spelling Bee.

Key to Awesomeness:

W-A-S-T-R-E-L. The word, which means “something rejected or discarded as useless or imperfect,” crowned Rancho Peñasquitos resident Snigdha Nandipati as the winner of the San Diego County Scripps National Spelling Bee.

“I was really nervous in the beginning,” Snigdha said. “But then the words I got were pretty easy and I knew them, so my nervousness wore away.”

The 12 year old beat 94 other seventh and eighth graders to win the competition, which took more than four and a half hours to complete.

In June, she will travel to Washington, D.C. to compete in the 2011 Scripps National Spelling Bee.

“I’m really happy that I won,” Snigdha said. “I studied a lot for it.”

Snigdha first participated in a spelling bee when she was in third grade. She earned second place.

“I got really interested from then on and started participating in spelling bees,” she said.

For this competition, Snigdha studied about seven hours on weekends and a couple hours on weekdays, depending on the number of homework assignments she had, said her father, Krishnarao Nandipati.

“We’re all excited,” he said. “Our whole family is very proud of her.”

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