Eight Fairfax County Public Schools (FCPS) graduates from the class of 2017 have been named winners of college-sponsored scholarships by the National Merit Scholarship Corporation (NMSC).

Recipients of college-sponsored scholarships from the NMSC, with their probable career fields in parentheses, are:

• Kanishk Singh of Langley High School (diplomatic service), National Merit Carleton College Scholarship.
• Carlyn Kranking of McLean High School (journalism), National Merit Northwestern University Scholarship.
• Abhishek Mishra of Thomas Jefferson High School for Science and Technology (TJHSST) (computer science), National Merit University of Maryland Scholarship.
• Aditi Sundararaman of TJHSST (computer science), National Merit University of Maryland Scholarship.
• Christine Wang of TJHSST (aerospace engineering), National Merit Purdue University Scholarship.
• Diana Zavela of TJHSST (engineering), National Merit Case Western Reserve University Scholarship.
• Andrew Elaryan of Woodson High School (mechanical engineering), National Merit University of Oklahoma Scholarship.
• Brian Ward of Woodson High School (political science), National Merit Boston College Scholarship.

College-sponsored Merit Scholarships provide between $500 and $2,000 annually for up to four years of undergraduate study at the institution financing the scholarship. Nationwide, approximately 7,500 students have won Merit Scholarship awards in 2017. This is the final group of scholarship recipients for the class of 2017.

National Merit Semifinalists are named each September in a state-representational basis in numbers proportional to each state’s percentage of the national total of graduating high school seniors. Semifinalists for 2017 are students with the highest scores on the 2015 Preliminary SAT-National Merit Scholarship Qualifying Test (PSAT-NMSQT®), which serves as an initial screen of program entrants. The program is administered by the National Merit Scholarship Corporation.