Twenty MCPS students from eight high schools have been awarded National Merit corporate-sponsored scholarships financed by the National Merit Scholarship Corporation. The students are part of a group of more than 1,000 National Merit finalists chosen to receive scholarships financed by about 136 corporations, company foundations and other business organizations.

The students are among 28 high school seniors in Maryland to be selected in the latest group of National Merit Scholarship Program recipients. The scholars were selected from a pool of more than 16,000 students, and will receive awards between $1,000 and $10,000 for post-secondary education.

The National Merit Scholarship Corporation (NMSC) was established in 1955 to honor scholastically talented youth and encourage academic excellence at all levels of education. The scholarships are privately funded by NMSC, and are underwritten by more than 400 independent corporate and college sponsors.

Winners of the corporate-sponsored scholarships, with their schools and probable career fields are:

Montgomery Blair High School

Celeste R. Basken
Probable career field: Environmental Policy

Aditya Chattopadhyay
Probable career field: Computer Science

Kevin J. Gehl
Probable career field: Law

Alena Y. Hu
Probable career field: Mechanical Engineering

Winston Churchill High School

Amber Liu
Probable career field: Medicine

Andrew T. Wang
Probable career field: Medicine

Justin Wang
Probable career field: Electrical Engineering

Damascus High School

Pritham S. Mulagura
Probable career field: Medicine

Northwest High School

Melanie Duong
Probable career field: Law (Intellectual Property)

Imani Ghosh
Probable career field: Medicine

Poolesville High School

Neha Chandra
Probable career field: Medicine

Arpita M. Raman
Probable career field: Medicine

Vivian Y. Xiao
Probable career field: Computer Science

Richard Montgomery High School

Madeline E. Lawrence
Probable career field: Undecided

Feileen N. Li
Probable career field: International Business

Vismaya P. Mohindra
Probable career field: International Relations

Emily S. Wu
Probable career field: Business

Walt Whitman High School

Hugh Markham
Probable career field: Entrepreneurship

Thomas S. Wootton High School

Keerthi Padmanabhan
Probable career field: Materials Engineering

Isra Qadri
Probable career field: Public Policy