National Merit Scholarship Corporation announced Green Valley High School Senior Amar Shah a National Merit $2500 Scholarship winner.

Amar Shah, son of Himanshu and Lopa Shah, is graduating from Green Valley High School and is planning to pursue a career in Nanotechnology at Cornell University, Ithaca, New York.  Previously, Amar was nominated for the 2015 Presidential Scholar from Nevada.  At Green Valley High Amar is a candidate for Valedictorian candidate with 4.8 GPA.

Apart from excelling in academics, Amar is also active in sports and other curricular activities at his high school.  Amar is a captain of school tennis team, plays violin in school’s symphony orchestra, earned 1st place in School District debate tournament, active in local math competitions and has a 1st degree black belt – tempo style.

 Photo courtesy – Zipcode Magazine

The 2,500 Merit Scholar designees were chosen from a talent pool of more than 15,000 outstanding Finalists in the 2015 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.

This year’s competition for National Merit Scholarships began in October 2013 when over 1.4 million juniors in some 22,000 high schools took the Preliminary SAT/National Merit Scholarship Qualifying Test (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 16,000 Semifinalists had an opportunity to continue in the competition. From the Semifinalist group, 15,000 students met the very high academic standards and other requirements to advance to the Finalist level of the competition. By the conclusion of the 2015 program, about 7,600 Finalists will have earned the “Merit Scholar” title and received a total of about $34 million in college scholarships.