• Andrew Basin of Vienna, John Bellaschi of McLean, Thomas Edelmann of Vienna, Chae Hyun Kim of Vienna, Grace Kim of Vienna and Kirshna Sardana of Vienna earned faculty honored and Solomon Hutchins of Vienna and Jessica Maebius of Great Falls have been named to the dean’s list for the fall semester at the Georgia Institute of Technology (Georgia Tech).
• Ethan Zhou, a student at McLean High School, has placed seventh in the national 2023 Regeneron Science Talent Search.
Zhou received a $70,000 award for studying the theory behind a machine-learning model in which the learning program receives training data gradually. His math research could be especially useful for algorithms that predict and learn from events that are revealed over time, like the weather, Fairfax school officials said.
Zhou is a three-time USA Math Olympiad qualifier and heads the math league at McLean High School, where he helped double the size of the club. He is also a prize-winning pianist, a skill he has honed for more than a decade.
The son of Guangming Zhou and Jia Hong, Zhou has also tutored at the Hope Chinese School for five years.
• All nine Potomac School students who were named National Merit Scholarship semifinalists in September 2022 have been named finalists in the 2023 National Merit Scholarship Program, school officials said March 14.
Seniors Michelle Ahn, Olee Banerjee, Arya Bansal, Ben Joel, Grace Lee, Yabby Maelaf, Tea Picconatto, Jack Wigmore and Patrick Wolff are among more than 15,000 finalists.
The National Merit Scholarship Program is an academic competition that allows for recognition and scholarships. The program began in 1955, with roughly 1.5 million high-school students entering yearly.
To become a finalist, a semifinalist must submit a detailed scholarship application that includes evidence of an academic record of very high performance, endorsement by the school principal, SAT scores that confirm the student’s earlier qualifying test performance, a self-descriptive essay and evidence of the student’s participation and leadership in school and community activities.
Semifinalists represent less than 1 percent of U.S. high-school seniors.
Merit Scholar designees are selected on the basis of their skills, accomplishments and potential for success in rigorous college studies, without regard to gender, race, ethnic origin or religious preference.
These students now are eligible for approximately 7,250 National Merit Scholarship awards worth nearly $28 million that will be awarded beginning in April and concluding in July.
• A trio of sophomores at the Potomac School in McLean recently were named 2023 Northern Virginia “Student Visionaries of the Year” by the Leukemia & Lymphoma Society’s (LLS) Mid-Atlantic Region.
Sahil Sardar, Ella Lu and Wyatt Pearce, who raised the most funds for the Northern Virginia campaign in its inaugural year, led a 14-member group called Team Answers for Cancers. The group was among 14 founding Northern Virginia Student Visionaries of the Year teams.
“While each of the students on Team Answers for Cancers had their own reason for joining LLS in the fight against blood cancer, they all exhibited an extraordinary level of passion, drive and dedication,” society officials said.
Among others honored at this year’s awards was the second runner-up, “Team Grant the Champ,” led by Olivia Cubba of James Madison High School in Vienna.
The students raise money and spread awareness in honor of a local patient who currently is battling blood cancer or is in remission from it. Top local fund-raisers become eligible to win the national title.
To learn more about the program, see the Website at www.llsstudentvisionaries.org.
• A total of 203 students from 15 Fairfax County Public Schools high schools were recognized as event winners at the Virginia DECA State Leadership Conference held in Virginia Beach March 3-5.
The students earned the right to compete at the DECA International Career Development Conference April 22-25.
Twenty-three students were named first-place winners, 33 students earned second-place awards, and 42 students placed third in their events.
Students from the GazetteLeader coverage area receiving first-place awards included:
– From George C. Marshall High School: Sara Nadkarni, professional selling; Sydney Chu, restaurant-food-service management.
– From James Madison High School: Katie Littlejohn, financial consulting.
– From McLean High School: Nicolas Christofferson, Aadil Singh, entrepreneurship team.
– From Oakton High School: Yige Xu, business growth; Savit Nair, Andrew Taylor, financial-services team; John Park, Natalie Truong, hospitality and tourism-operations research; and Ken Zhou, personal financial literacy.
