The National Merit Scholarship Corp. recently announced Seneca Valley seniors David Choi, Zachary Garcia and Ananya Rao are National Merit $2,500 scholarship winners.

The designees were chosen from a talent pool of some 16,000 finalists in the 2021 National Merit Scholarship Program.

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: academic records, including difficulty level of subjects studied and grades earned; scores from the preliminary qualifying test; contributions and leadership in school and community activities; essays written by finalists; and recommendations written by high school officials.