8 isle students get National Merit scholarships

Eight Oahu high school students received scholarships up to $2,000 through the National Merit Scholarship Program.

The National Merit Scholarship Corp. announced Tuesday the following Oahu recipients:

» Gabriella E. Henrie of Kahuku High received the National Merit Herbert A. Templeton Scholarship.

» Zhenghua Huang of ‘Iolani received the National Merit New York University Scholarship.

» Sho Kenneth Kajima of ‘Iolani received the National Merit Claremont McKenna College Scholarship.

» Jeffrey Y. Kawahara of ‘Iolani received the National Merit Oberlin College Scholarship.

» Alexander W. Pang of Punahou received the National Merit Kenyon College Scholarship.

» David M. Pham of ‘Iolani received the National Merit Arizona State University Scholarship.

» Colin C. Tseng of ‘Iolani received the National Merit University of Southern California Scholarship.

» Jamie S. K. Takayesu of ‘Iolani also received the National Merit University of Southern California Scholarship.

This year the scholarships were financed by 198 colleges and universities from 45 states and the District of Columbia.

Officials of each college selected from a finalists pool who would be the recipient of their scholarship. The scholarships provide between $500 and $2,000 annually for up to four years of undergraduate study at the institution financing the scholarship.

There were 1.5 million juniors from some 22,000 high schools who went out for the scholarship, but only 8,300 were awarded scholarships.