National Merit Scholarship Corporation (NMSC®) recently announced this year’s National Merit $2500 Scholarship winners, including six students from Cobb Schools. The Cobb students are seniors at Campbell High School, Kennesaw Mountain High School, Pope High School, Walton High School, and Wheeler High School. 

The $2,500 Merit Scholar designees were chosen from a talent pool of some 15,000 outstanding Finalists in the 2022 National Merit Scholarship Program. The students are judged to have the strongest combination of accomplishments, skills, and potential for success in rigorous college studies.

NMSC recently named four Cobb students winners of Corporate-Sponsored National Merit Scholarships. Additional National Merit Scholarship winners will be announced in the coming months.  

These Scholars were selected by a committee of college admissions officers and high school counselors, who appraised a substantial amount of information submitted by both the Finalists and their high schools: the academic record, including difficulty level of subjects studied and grades earned; scores from the Preliminary SAT/National Merit Scholarship Qualifying Test (PSAT/NMSQT®); contributions and leadership in school and community activities; an essay written by the Finalist; and a recommendation written by a high school official.

NMSC finances most of these single-payment National Merit $2500 Scholarships. Corporations and company foundations that sponsor awards through NMSC also help underwrite these scholarships with grants they provide instead of paying administrative fees. Scholars may use their awards at any regionally accredited U.S. college or university.

This year’s National Merit Scholarship Program began in October 2020 when high school juniors took the PSAT/NMSQT, which served as an initial screen of program entrants. Last fall, the highest-scoring participants in each state, representing less than one percent of the nation’s high school seniors, were named Semifinalists on a state-representational basis. More than 16,000 Semifinalists had an opportunity to continue in the competition.

From the Semifinalist group, over 15,000 students met the very high academic standards and other requirements to advance to the Finalist level of the competition. By the conclusion of the 2022 program, about 7,500 Finalists will have earned the “Merit Scholar” title and received a total of nearly $28 million in college scholarships.

NMSC, a not-for-profit corporation that operates without government assistance, was founded in 1955 specifically to conduct the National Merit Scholarship Program. The majority of scholarships offered each year are underwritten by approximately 400 independent corporate college sponsors that share NMSC’s goals of honoring scholastically talented youth and encouraging academic excellence at all levels of education.

Cobb Schools $2,500 National Merit Scholarship Winners: 

Lauren Y. Lee, Campbell High School

Probable career field: Biochemical Engineering

Soumit Guntupalli, Kennesaw Mountain High School

Probable career field: Dentistry

Oluwaseminire A. Oloyede, Pope High School

Probable career field: Medicine

Chinmay P. Joshi, Walton High School

Probable career field: Medicine

Aadi Katta, Walton High School

Probable career field: Computer Science

Satya S. Tetali, Wheeler High School

Probable career field: Biochemistry