Scarsdale High School Awards and National Merit Finalists

Scarsdale High School Awards:

On Wednesday night, May 5th, 53 Scarsdale High School students were honored for their achievements at the annual awards ceremony. Faculty and administrators of SHS, along with a few Scarsdale community members, came together to recognize juniors and seniors for accomplishments in academic subjects, community service, and leadership. The Judith E. Weil Kindness Award was presented for the first time, by Ms. Mandy Weil Lax, in honor of her late mother, Scarsdale community member Judith E. Weil. While a ceremony over Zoom posed some unique challenges, the ceremony went smoothly. A list of winners can be found below. Congratulations to all of those honored!

ARTS AWARDS

Excellence in Visual Art 2D: Courtney Guastafeste

Excellence in Visual Art 3D: Mia de la Fuente-Akersveen

Media Award: Caroline Cavalier

Elisa Draper Art History Award: Jayho So

Friends of Music and Art Permanent Collection Award: Anna Cho

ENGLISH AWARDS

Harvard University Award: Angela Hoey

Brown University Award: Anoushka Dasgupta

Princeton English Excellence Award: Emily Hansen

Audrey McGinn Creative Writing Award: Jake Rompala

MATHEMATICS AWARDS

Rensselaer Mathematics & Science Award: Maxwell Trager

Math Faculty Award: Adam Wasserman

PERFORMING ARTS AWARDS

Band Award: Vivian Stewart

Chorus Award: Emily Hansen

Orchestra Award: Juling Wang

Sidney R. Case Memorial Scholarship: Joanna Wang

Friends of Music and Art Drama Award: Alison Robelen

SCIENCE AWARDS

New York Science Supervisors Association Awards
Biology: Samantha Kefer
Chemistry: Shan Daniel
Physics: Abigail Talish

University of Rochester/Bausch and Lomb Award: Maggie Peng

Science Excellence Award: Zach Siegel

Science Department Award: Keerthana Chari

SOCIAL STUDIES AWARDS

Social Studies Achievement Awards: Rowan Haffner, Chinasa Ohajekwe

Social Studies Faculty Award: Adina Weinbaum

Social Studies Excellence Awards: Aanya Schoetz, Robert Fogel

WORLD LANGUAGES AWARDS

Latin Award: Sam Lippmann

Mandarin Award: Margaret Kemp

French Award: Mariana Ferraz

Spanish Language Award: Phoebe Yusen

Spanish Literature Award: Vivian Guo

Departmental Award: Neema Mwamburi

Steve Corbin Academic Success Award: Simon Yu

Counseling Department Award: Jimena Aguilar

Casey Ferrone Memorial Award: Sarah Osinoff

Junior Scholarship/Service Award: Rishika Bansal

Junior Academic Excellence Award: Jeremy Ng

Wellesley Book Award: Claire Scarcella

Yale University Award: Eliana Zitrin

David Smith Memorial Award: Danielle Eforo, Eddie Eforo

Judith E. Weil Kindness Award: Jane Schmelkin

Scarsdale Alumni Association Eric Rothschild Award: Adam Wasserman

Scarsdale Foundation Award: Emmett Goldstein

Michael V. McGill Book Award: Scott Goldban

NYS Comptroller’s Student Achievement Awards: Jolie Kantor, Anabel Calderon, Gustavo Quaresma De Moura

NYS Office of the Attorney General Triple “C” Awards: Devin Goldman, Matthew Ostow

Dartmouth College Award: Jaden Bharara

Billy Safian Humanitarian Award: Jacob Rosewater

Halliday Clark Sr. Memorial Award: Simran Ruta

Principal’s Award: Michael Waxman

National Merit Awards

Two Scarsdale High School students were named National Merit Finalists this year and will each receive a $2,500 merit award.

They are Peiling Megan Niu who plans to study International Relations and Adam H. Wasserman who plans to study Mechanical Engineering.

The 2,500 Merit Scholar designees were chosen from a pool of some 16,000 outstanding Finalists in the 2021 National Merit Scholarship Program.

National Merit $2500 Scholarship winners are the finalists in each state judged to have the strongest combination of accomplishments, skills, and potential for success in rigorous college studies. The number of winners named in each state is proportional to the state’s percentage of the nation’s graduating high school seniors.

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 in lieu of paying administrative fees. Scholars may use their awards at any regionally accredited U.S. college or university.

2021 National Merit Scholarship Competition
This year’s National Merit Scholarship Program began in October 2019 when over 1.5 million juniors in about 21,000 high schools 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. Only these approximately 17,000 Semifinalists had an opportunity to continue in the competition.

From the Semifinalist group, some 16,000 students met the very high academic standards and other requirements to advance to the Finalist level of the competition. By the conclusion of the 2021 program, about 7,500 Finalists will have earned the “Merit Scholar” title and received a total of nearly $30 million in college scholarships.