San Ramon Students Awarded 2019 National Merit Scholarship

SAN RAMON, CA — Nine San Ramon teens will receive $2500 National Merit Scholarships. They were chosen from a pool of more than 15,000 finalists in the 2019 National Merit Scholarship Program.

They and other California winners were 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, according to the National Merit Scholarship Corporation (NMSC).

San Ramon winners:

California High:

• Pranav Anand, Probable career field: Investment Banking

Dougherty Valley High:

• Anson R. Hu, Probable career field: Computer Science
• Carolyn Lai, Probable career field: Medicine
• Kelly Li, Probable career field: Computer Science
• Yash M. Potdar, Probable career field: Computer Science
• Caitlin H. Sim, Probable career field: Computer Science
• Pooja S. Tallapaneni, Probable career field: Biomedicine
• Amanda Yang, Probable career field: Law

Homeschool:

• Megan Y. Yu, Probable career field: Computer Science

The scholarship recipients were selected by a committee of college admissions officers and high
school counselors using this criteria: academic records including difficulty level of subjects studied and grades earned; scores from two standardized tests; contributions and leadership in school and community activities; an essay written by the finalist; and a recommendation written by a high school official.

On June 5 and July 15, more than 4,000 college-sponsored Merit Scholarship winners will be announced. By the conclusion of this year's competition, about 7,600 students will have won National Merit Scholarships worth more than $31 million.

By Bea Karnes, Patch Staff