As part of this year’s National Merit Scholarship Program, an academic competition for recognition and university scholarships dating back to 1955, about 7,600 high school students are expected to win National Merit Scholarships, corporate-sponsored Merit Scholarship awards and college-sponsored Merit Scholarship awards worth nearly $34 million. The awards are granted on the basis of academic standing; standardized test scores; community service, including relevant extracurricular activities, awards and leadership positions; recommendations by school officials; and student essays.

Among those in line to receive one-time $2,500 National Merit Scholarships are Harker’s own Jason Chu (astrophysics), Rahul Jayaraman (astrophysics), Andrew Jin (computer science), Cindy Liu (bioengineering), Suzy Lou (mathematics), Nitya Mani (mathematics), Ayush Midha (medicine), Vivek Sriram (bioinformatics), Helen Wu (neuroscience), Menghua Wu (computer science) and Samyukta Yagati (computer science). Meanwhile, Sachin Peddada (medicine) received an annual corporate-sponsored Merit Scholarship courtesy of Siemens Corp. (these awards range from $500-$10,000, with amount to be determined). Allen Huang (biomedical engineering) and Juhi Muthal (business) were granted annual college-sponsored Merit Scholarships from the University of Southern California and the University of Chicago, respectively (these awards range from $500-$2,000, with amount to be determined).