The National Merit Scholarship Corp. announced a fresh round of honorees this week, and nearly a third of the 45 Minnesota recipients attend three metro-area high schools.
Five students from both Mounds View and Edina high schools won $2,500 scholarships. Four students from Wayzata High School secured the highly sought award. Other winners came from a variety of schools across the state.
The National Merit scholarship is among the most esteemed scholastic prizes in the country. To qualify for consideration, students must score high on the PSAT and then earn another high score on the SAT or ACT that confirms their performance.
Recipients are chosen by a committee of high school counselors and college admissions officials. That panel rates each entrant's academic record, which includes a survey of their grades and difficulty of their coursework. Finalists are also judged by a personal essay and letter of recommendation from an educator.
The winners announced in this round include:
Grace Everts, Madeline Howard, Karen Lee, Ananth Veluvali and William Walkley from Edina High School.
Gavin Chang, Elisa Guo, Yatharth Sharma, Riley Stern and Johnny Yue from Mounds View High School.
Atharva Gorantiwar, Emily Liu, Shivansh Sharma and Adhvaith Sridhar from Wayzata High School.