South Brunswick Students Win College-Sponsored Merit Scholarship

SOUTH BRUNSWICK, NJ — Three students from South Brunswick High School recently won a college-sponsored scholarship from the National Merit Scholarship Competition, the organization announced Wednesday.

Adrian Gaspar received the National Merit University of Texas at Dallas Scholarship. He plans to study Biomedical Engineering at the university in the fall.

Vikrant Pulipati won the National Merit Rutgers, the State University of New Jersey Scholarship, and plans to pursue a career in Computer Science.

Neel Shah is the recipient of the Nation Merit University of Maryland Scholarship and is interested in the field of Computer Science.

The South Brunswick High School seniors are among more than 3,100 winners receiving National Merit Scholarships sponsored by U.S. colleges or universities they plan to attend.

The scholarships provide between $500 and $2,000 annually for up to four years of undergraduate study at the institution financing the scholarship.

Sponsor colleges and universities include 85 private and 75 public institutions in 42 states and D.C.

The prestigious competition judges high school students based on their PSATs and awards a number of scholarships during a student's senior year.

To be entered for the National Merit Scholarship competition, over 1.5 million students were entered as juniors taking the PSAT in 2019.

To be considered as a finalist, semifinalists had to submit a detailed scholarship application with an essay and information on extracurricular activities, awards, and leadership positions as well as demonstrate an outstanding academic record. They also need to have an endorsement from a high school official.

From the semifinalist, 16,000 finalists were chosen, and about half of them will be Merit Scholarship winners in 2021, the organization said.

In 2021 about 7,500 high school seniors will receive National Merit Scholarships for college undergraduate study worth nearly $30 million.

The first announcement of college-sponsored awards comes after winners of corporate-sponsored Merit Scholarship awards were announced in April and National Merit Scholarship Corporation's own $2,500 Scholarships were announced in May.

More college-sponsored award winners will be announced on July 12. This will bring the total of college-sponsored awards to about 4,000.

(With reporting from Anthony Bellano, Patch Staff)

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