5-29-2026 4:29am

2 Students Win

Carver Center and Dulaney High seniors earn National Merit $2,500 Scholarship awards

TOWSON, MD—Two Baltimore County Public Schools seniors have been named winners of the National Merit $2,500 Scholarship, joining an elite group of 2,500 students recognized nationwide for their academic achievement and leadership.

Khushi Bhavesh Patel of the George Washington Carver Center for Arts and Technology and Nicole Y. Jia of Dulaney High School were selected from a pool of more than 15,000 finalists. The winners are judged by a committee of college admissions officers and high school counselors to have the strongest combination of skills, accomplishments, and potential for success in rigorous university studies.

Patel, an Owings Mills resident specializing in vocal music at Carver Center, plans to study psychology at the University of Maryland, College Park. During her high school career, she served as captain of her school’s varsity tennis team, leading them to back-to-back regional championships in 2024 and 2025. She also gained experience in child development by working as an assistant teacher at the Goddard School.

Jia, a resident of Timonium, plans to attend Princeton University to study electrical engineering. She maintained a 4.0 unweighted GPA while completing 26 gifted and talented or Advanced Placement courses. Her extracurricular portfolio includes serving as president of Dulaney VEX Robotics and captaining the only competitive all-girls robotics team in Maryland. In 2024, she completed a highly competitive internship at the NASA Goddard Space Flight Center.

The National Merit Scholarship Corporation selects winners based on academic records, difficulty of subjects, standardized test scores, and contributions to school and community activities. The number of winners in each state is determined by the state’s proportion of the national total of graduating seniors.

This announcement represents the second round of winners in the 2026 competition. In April, the program named recipients of corporate-sponsored awards, while winners of college-sponsored scholarships are scheduled to be announced in June and July. By the end of this year’s cycle, more than 6,700 students will have received scholarships totaling approximately $24 million.

The 2026 competition began in 2024 when high school juniors took the Preliminary SAT/National Merit Scholarship Qualifying Test. More than 16,000 semifinalists were designated last fall, representing less than 1 percent of the nation’s high school seniors. To reach the finalist stage, students were required to submit detailed applications, write essays, and receive endorsements from high school officials.