40 National Merit Scholars From Austin Metro Announced

Austin TX

02 June, 2021

3:05 PM

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AUSTIN METRO, TX —The next group of 2021 National Merit Scholarship winners include 40 high school students from the Austin Metro area. The National Merit winners from Austin, Cedar Park, Leander and Round Rock are among the more than 3,100 announced nationally this year to receive between $500 and $2,000 scholarships from colleges and universities across the country, the National Merit Scholarship Corp. said in a news release Wednesday. National Merit Scholarship winners from the Austin Metro in 2021 include: Noel Abitzen of Austin (Vandegrift H.S.) Lance J. Andruss of Austin (Westlake H.S.)Noah S. Batchelor of Austin (Regents School)Abhijay Bhaskaran of Austin (Westwood H.S.)Avinash Bhaskaran of Austin (Westwood H.S.)Lena J. Birkholz of Austin (Liberal Arts and Science Academy H.S.)Kayla K. Bui of Austin (Westwood H.S.)Dallas O. Coggins of Austin (James Bowie H.S.)Swapnil Dash of Austin (Westwood H.S.)Souptik De of Austin (Lake Travis H.S.)Sourav Dhar of Austin (Westwood H.S.)Jacob P. Dodson of Austin (Veritas Academy)Naser Farhataziz (Westwood H.S.)Evan A. Fletcher of Austin (L.C. Anderson H.S.)Caleb M. Fowler of Austin (Westwood H.S.)Jessica P. Jakubik of Austin (Westlake H.S.)Pranav Jose of Austin (Vandegrift H.S.)Vertriliaa Kumar of Austin (Liberal Arts and Science Academy H.S.)Liam E. Langert of Austin (Liberal Arts and Science Academy H.S.)Kevin H. Le of Austin (Liberal Arts and Science Academy H.S.)Cassidy R. Lee of Austin (Westwood H.S.)Dana L. McCoy of Austin (McNeil H.S.)Jack W. Moran of Austin (Westwood H.S.)Alexander L. Pickard of Austin (Vandegrift H.S.)Samuel R. Siegel of Austin (Westwood H.S.)Blake N. Smith of Austin (Veritas Academy)Lekha Reddy Sripathi of Austin (Vandegrift H.S.)Garrett M. Stevenson of Austin (Vandegrift H.S.)Lily Y. Trentham of Austin (Liberal Arts and Science Academy H.S.)Alexander I. Yang of Austin (Liberal Arts and Science Academy H.S.)Khoi N. Le of Cedar Park (Cedar Park H.S.)Christopher J. Lee of Cedar Park (Cedar Park H.S.)Wyatt C. Rust of Cedar Park (Cedar Park H.S.)Gabriel Smith of Cedar Park (Vista Ridge H.S.)Joshua M. Puleski of Leander (Rouse H.S.)Benjamin S. Chafin of Round Rock (Round Rock H.S.)Abhay Kanna of Round Rock (Cedar Ridge H.S.)William R. Lamparter of Round Rock (Cedar Ridge H.S.)Caleb A. Lewis of Round Rock (Cedar Ridge H.S.)Eric X. Ma of Round Rock (Round Rock H.S.) The National Merit winners announced this week will have their scholarships funded by the colleges and universities that they will attend. One hundred and sixty colleges and universities — including 85 private and 75 public schools — took part in the merit scholarship program in 2021. An additional group of college-sponsored National Merit scholars will be announced in July, the scholarship corporation said. This group is part of the approximately 7,500 National Merit scholarship winners who will be selected by the end of 2021. National Merit scholarships via corporate-sponsored awards and the corporation's own $2,500 scholarships were announced earlier in the spring. MORE: 2nd Round Of National Merit Scholarships: Austin Area Winners MORE: Austin Area Students Are National Merit Scholarship Winners More than 1.5 million juniors nationally entered the 2021 National Merit scholarship program when they took the 2019 preliminary SAT/National Merit scholarship qualifying test, the corporation said. About 17,000 semifinalists, fewer than 1 percent of the country's high school seniors, were announced last fall. Semifinalists had to write an essay and detail their extracurricular activities, awards and leadership positions to become a finalist. About half of the 16,000 finalists will be merit scholars by the end of the year, the corporation said.