Twenty MCPS Students Receive College-Sponsored National Merit Scholarships

May 25, 2012

Twenty Montgomery County Public Schools (MCPS) students have received college- and university-sponsored National Merit Scholarships in the latest round of awards. This represents nearly half of the 46 recipients in the state of Maryland.

Each sponsoring college or university selected scholarship winners from among finalists in the 2012 National Merit Scholarship Program. These awards provide between $500 and $2,000 annually for up to four years of undergraduate study at the institution financing the scholarship.

Earlier this year, it was announced that 40 MCPS students had been awarded National Merit Scholarships —nine students won corporate-sponsored scholarships, 18 won National Merit $2,500 Scholarships and 13 won National Achievement Scholarships for academically promising African American students.

The 20 students bring the MCPS total of National Merit Scholarship winners to 60, with one more round of winners to be named in July.

The winners, their intended career fields and the sponsoring university or college are:

Bethesda-Chevy Chase High School: Nathaniel H. Schwartz, University of Chicago, undecided

Montgomery Blair High School: Rajan Bal, University of Maryland, law; Andrew B. Gilbert, Northeastern University, actuarial science/international business; Justin C. Ho, University of Maryland, computer engineering; Elisa M. Johnson, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, education policy

Winston Churchill High School: Ariel Lai, University of Maryland, computer programming; Cindy Yiin, University of Southern California, architecture

Richard Montgomery High School: Kuang Jen Hsieh, University of Maryland, business; Jacqueline B. Nelligan, Washington University in St. Louis, neuroscience; Kathleen X. Weng, University of Maryland, business/law; Cayla M. Jakubowski, American University, international relations; Janet H. Kim, University of Southern California, electrical engineering; Brian R. Gaynor, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, exercise/sports science; Hau-Jiun Kau, University of Maryland, electrical engineering

Poolesville High School: Brian S. Kang, University of Maryland, biology/medicine; Kevin E. Harrison, University of Maryland, computer science

Walt Whitman High School: Nathaniel T. Rabner, University of Maryland, journalism

Thomas S. Wootton High School: Meghna Ramaswamy, University of Maryland, medicine; Christopher Y. Wong, University of Maryland, materials science/engineering; Narain S. Krishnamurthy, University of Maryland, quantitative finance

National Merit Scholarship Corporation press release

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