Countywide : 12 Students Awarded Merit Scholarships

Twelve students from Orange County have been chosen from among high school students nationwide to win corporate-sponsored Merit Scholarships, many of which provide up to four years of college undergraduate study and an average stipend of $1,700 per year.

About 1.1 million students in more than 19,000 nationwide high schools competed for the scholarships.

The 6,500 students chosen nationwide to receive Merit Scholarships scored in the top half of 1% on the Merit Program test, the PSAT/NMSQT. The 1,100 winners of corporate-sponsored scholarships were chosen from among students who also have qualifications of particular interest to the more than 400 corporations sponsoring the awards.

The programs usually subsidize the children of employees, students in the communities where the companies are headquartered or some other particular criteria the firms wish to celebrate.

In order to become eligible for scholarships, students had to have not only top test scores, but to have met extremely high academic standards, be endorsed and recommended by their school principal and provide information about activities, interests and goals. All merit scholarship winners were chosen based on their abilities, accomplishments and potential for success in rigorous college studies, a report from the Merit Scholarship Corp. said.

Winners from Orange County are: Connie Kim and Heidi Devries of Canyon High School in Anaheim, Aneesh Sha of Brea Olinda High School in Brea, Kelli Guzman of Fountain Valley High School, Surya Ganguli of University High School in Irvine, Laura Greco of Santa Margarita High School in Rancho Santa Margarita, Thomas Westin of Irvine High School, David Huang of Laguna Hills High School and Brooke Lyons of St. Margaret’s School Episcopal in San Juan Capistrano.

Others are: Joseph Horvath of Mission Viejo High School, Eric Passchier of Mater Dei High School in Santa Ana and Rachel Schilling of Rosary High School in Fullerton.