Twenty-eight students from nine high schools in Fairfax County have been awarded $2,500 scholarships by the National Merit Scholarship Corporation (NMSC). These students are among approximately 2,500 National Merit finalists selected to receive scholarships in 2025, mainly funded by the NMSC.
The scholarship recipients and their intended career fields are as follows: Logan Bradley (computer science), Eloise Minnigh (veterinary medicine), Avni Garg (applied mathematics), Samvrit Rao (orthopedics), Rohan Kotla (medicine), Ray Zhang (science/research), Grace Im (law), Dhruv Chandna (computer science), Sophia Zhang Lin (computer science), Sanchali Banerjee (science/research), Arnav Bhalla (medicine), Phoebe Pan (biomedical engineering), Patrick Shi (bioinformatics), Jason Hao (financial quantitative analysis) from Thomas Jefferson High School for Science and Technology; Himagnya Elaprolu (finance) from Chantilly High School; Chloe Choi (chemical engineering) from Woodson High School; Shubha Udipi (computer science) from Fairfax High School; Joshua Wang (computer engineering) and Jackson Mika (finance) from Oakton High School; Jonah Ascoli (mathematics) from Lake Braddock Secondary School; Amy Key, Vishwa Rakasi, John Wu, Anniyah Rizvi from Langley High School with interests in computer science, international relations, politics respectively; Aravind Siva in finance at Westfield High School; Rachel Noh pursuing medicine at McLean High School and Kyan Yang interested in neuroscience at Madison High School.
Each of these winners was assessed based on academic performance including course difficulty and grades earned. Evaluation also included scores on two standardized tests, involvement and leadership in school and community activities, a personal essay, and a recommendation from a high school official. The number of winners per state corresponds to the state’s share of the national total of graduating high school seniors. Selection is conducted by the National Merit Scholarship Corporation rather than individual school districts.
