National Merit Scholarship Corporation (NMSC) announced Armaan Parikh as a winner of National Merit Scholarships financed by colleges and universities. Parikh, a Merit Scholar designee, joins more than 3,000 other college-sponsored award recipients announced earlier in June.

Parikh, a Clark High School magnet program graduate, plans to pursue a Neurosciences degree at Vanderbilt University in Nashville, Tennessee.  

As part of his commitment to giving back to the local Las Vegas community, Parikh founded the nonprofit Armed with IQ (AIQ) Foundation in 2021. The Foundation is focused on assisting the local foster kids with their daily needs. As per their website, AIQ hopes to ease the stresses on these children and help them lead better lives. Led by Parikh, the Foundation donated clothing, suitcases, and other necessities to Peggy’s Attic, a donation center for the Clark County Department of Family Services. Foundation also started a tutoring and internship program to help foster kids with real-life work experience. Parikh started a Kickstart Prep Program to assist future high school students by sharing knowledge about college admission and offering free webinars focusing on the higher education application process. 

Officials of each sponsor college selected their scholarship winners from among the Finalists in the National Merit Scholarship Program who will attend their institution. College-sponsored awards provide between $500 and $2,000 annually for up to four years of undergraduate study at the institution financing the scholarship.