7 Howard County Students Named National Merit Scholars

HOWARD COUNTY, MD — Seven Howard County students have been named winners of the 2019 National Merit $2,500 Scholarship, including one who lives in Columbia. The merit scholar winners, announced Wednesday, were among 2,500 winners nationwide and were selected from a pool of more than 15,000 finalists.

This is the second group of National Merit Scholarship winners to be announced this year. In April, more than 1,000 recipients of the corporate-sponsored Merit Scholarship were named.

Additional winners will be named in June and July. By the end of the year, about 7,600 students will have won merit scholarships totaling more than $31 million. The money can be put toward any regionally accredited college or university in America.

A panel of college admissions officers and high school counselors judged the students based on their grades, difficulty of courses, standardized test scores, contributions and leadership both in school and in the community, an essay and a recommendation from a high school official.

Here are the winners from Howard County:

Nathan C. Daly

• Probable career field: Computer science
• School: Rockbridge Academy, Millersville
• Hometown: Columbia

Susan Lee Baek

• Probable career field: Law
• School: River Hill High School, Clarksville
• Hometown: Clarksville

Rhea Senthil Kumar

• Probable career field: Aerospace engineering
• School: River Hill High School, Clarksville
• Hometown: Clarksville

Chase S. Blanchette

• Probable career field: Electrical engineering
• School: Mount Hebron High School, Ellicott City
• Hometown: Ellicott City

Sayak Maity

• Probable career field: Entrepreneurship
• School: Centennial High School, Ellicott City
• Hometown: Ellicott City

Srija Makkapati

• Probable career field: Computer science
• School: Centennial High School, Ellicott City
• Hometown: Ellicott City

Eric Zhu

• Probable career field: Medicine
• School: Marriotts Ridge High School, Marriottsville
• Hometown: Woodstock

The merit scholarship program was created in 1955. Students in grades nine through 12 vie for academic recognition and financial support. About 1.6 million students take the qualifying test every year and about 50,000 of the highest scorers have the chance to be considered.

The number of winners in each state was proportional to the state’s share of the nation’s graduating high school seniors, according to the National Merit Scholarship Corporation.

Patch national staffer Dan Hampton contributed to this report.