6 Silver Spring Students Named National Merit Scholars

SILVER SPRING, MD — Six Silver Spring students have been named winners of the 2019 National Merit $2,500 Scholarship. A total of 25 students from Montgomery County schools were among the 2,500 winners nationwide announced Wednesday, 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 who attend schools in Silver Spring:

• Alice E. Turnham
  • Probable career field: Molecular Biology
  • School: Montgomery Blair High School
• Jonathan A. Berkowitz
  • Probable career field: Mathematics
  • School: Montgomery Blair High School
• Patrick S. Kim
  • Probable career field: Computer Engineering
  • School: Montgomery Blair High School
• Shwetha S. Kunnam
  • Probable career field: Mechanical Engineering
  • School: Montgomery Blair High School
• Megan C. Xiao
  • Probable career field: Biomedical Engineering
  • School: Montgomery Blair High School
• Jenny S. Mei
  • Probable career field: Engineering
  • School: Montgomery Blair High School

The winners from other Montgomery County schools are:

• Amanda Y. Chu
  • Probable career field: Entrepreneurship
  • School: Poolesville High School
• Vincent W. Bian
  • Probable career field: Mathematics
  • School: Poolesville High School
• Sophia J. Yi
  • Probable career field: Physics
  • School: Washington Christian Academy
• Clara Megan Benadon
  
  • Probable career field: Marine Biology
  • School: Poolesville High School
• Katherine Gourianova
  • Probable career field: Biomedicine
  • School: Winston Churchill High School
• Steven C. Mendley
  • Probable career field: Finance
  • School: Winston Churchill High School
• David S. Burgess
  • Probable career field: Nuclear Engineering
  • School: Paint Branch High School
• Thomas J. Mande
  • Probable career field: Public Policy
  • School: Walt Whitman High School
• William E. Tenpas
  • Probable career field: Engineering
  • School: Bethesda-Chevy Chase High School
• Patrick Dolan
  • Probable career field: Mechanical Engineering
  • School: Georgetown Preparatory School
• Benjamin R. Meron
  • Probably career field: Business
  • School: Walt Whitman High School
• Amelia J. Davidson
  • Probable career field: Public Service
  • School: Charles E. Smith Jewish Day School
• Jerry M. Yang
  • Probable career field: Neuroscience
  • School: Richard Montgomery High School
• Keerat Singh
  • Probable career field: International Law
  • School: Thomas Sprigg Wootton High School
• Isaac G. Applebaum
  • Probable career field: Biotechnology
  • School: Richard Montgomery High School
• Clarissa L. Xia
  • Probable career field: Neuroscience
  • School: Richard Montgomery High School
• Emily Yuan
  • Probable career field: Entrepreneurship
  • School: Richard Montgomery High School
• Grace E. Zhou
  • Probable career field: Economics
  • School: Richard Montgomery High School
• Angela C. Sun
  • Probable career field: Medicine
  • School: Richard Montgomery High School

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.