15 Princeton Students Win National Merit Scholarships

PRINCETON, NJ — 15 Princeton students have won National Merit Scholarships for 2020, the National Merit Scholarship Corporation announced.

Here are the winners from Princeton:

College-Sponsored Merit Scholarship Winners

• Groton School student Edward M. Deng earned a national merit scholarship from the University of Chicago Scholarship. Deng will likely pursue a career in biology.
• West Windsor-Plainsboro High School student Eric Y. Liu earned a national merit scholarship from the University of Chicago Scholarship. Liu will likely pursue a career in consulting.
• Princeton High School student Jordan C. Marabello earned a national merit scholarship from the Boston University Scholarship. Marabello will likely pursue a career in aerospace engineering.
• Hopewell Valley Central High School student Lindsey Kate Parker earned a national merit scholarship from the University of Maryland Scholarship. Parker is undecided about what career to pursue.
• Montgomery High School student Ahan Raina earned a national merit scholarship from the University of Chicago Scholarship. Raina will likely pursue a career in public policy.
• Princeton High School student Yuri K. Styrkas earned a national merit scholarship from the Rutgers, the State University of New Jersey Scholarship. Styrkas will likely pursue a career in physics.
• South Brunswick High School student Samarth Taneja earned a national merit scholarship from the Northeastern University Scholarship. Taneja will likely pursue a career in computer science.
• West Windsor-Plainsboro High School student Naveena V. Erranki earned a national merit scholarship from the Purdue University Scholarship. Erranki will likely pursue a career in computer science.
• Princeton High School student Meghna S. Pithani earned a national merit scholarship from the Rutgers, the State University of New Jersey Scholarship. Pithani will likely pursue a career in pharmacy.
• West Windsor-Plainsboro High School student Kevin Xu earned a national merit scholarship from the University of Texas at Dallas Scholarship. Xu will likely pursue a career in computer science.

Corporate-Sponsored Merit Scholarship Winners

• Princeton High School student Michaela Y. Guo earned a national merit scholarship from the Bristol-Myers Squibb Company. Guo is undecided about what career to pursue.
• Peddie School student Orion Jusuf earned a national merit scholarship from the Bristol-Myers Squibb Company. Jusuf will likely pursue a career in biomedical engineering.
• Montgomery High School student Audrey Ma earned a national merit scholarship from the Bristol-Myers Squibb Company. Ma will likely pursue a career in biology.
• Princeton Day School student Megha E. Thomas earned a national merit scholarship from the Merit S&P Global Company. Thomas will likely pursue a career in international relations.

National Merit® $2500 Scholarship Winners

• Princeton High School student Jonathan Li Lin earned $2,500 from the National Merit Scholarship Corporation's own funds. Lin will likely pursue a career in economics.

The Princeton students were among more than 1.5 million juniors in about 21,000 high schools to enter the 2020 National Merit Scholarship Program when they took the 2018 Preliminary SAT/National Merit Scholarship Qualifying Test (PSAT/NMSQT®), which served as an initial screen of program entrants.

The group was the narrowed down to 16,000 Semifinalists. Each Semifinalist was asked to submit a detailed scholarship application, which included writing an essay and providing information about extracurricular activities, awards, and leadership positions.

Semifinalists also had to have an outstanding academic record, be endorsed and recommended by a high school official, and earn SAT or ACT scores that confirmed the qualifying test performance.

From the Semifinalist group, about half of the Finalists were named Merit Scholarship winners in 2020.

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