Sanat Pillai of Liberty High School is one of 7,100 National Merit Scholarship winners for 2025.
Pillai, who plans on studying mathematics, is one of nearly 800 additional winners of the scholarships, which are financed by colleges and universities. Pillai’s scholarship comes from University of Texas at Dallas. The previous award recipients were announced in June.
From a July 14 announcement, officials of each sponsor college selected their winners from among the finalists of the National Merit Scholarship Program. These college-sponsored awards provide between $500 and $2,000 annually for up to four years of undergrad study.
Other Washington state winners come from high schools in Vashon, Bainbridge Island, Bellevue, Kirkland, Bellingham, Seattle, Mill Creek, Redmond and Tukwila.
Liberty High School’s Jonathon T. Chiu and Rachel M. Kollarmalil were also named National Merit $2,5000 Scholarship winners in May 2025.
This year’s competition for National Merit Scholarships began when high school juniors took the 2023 Preliminary SAT/National Merit Scholarship Qualifying Test, which served as an initial screen of program entrants. In September 2024, more than 16,000 semifinalists were named on a state-representational basis in numbers proportional to each state’s percentage of the national total of graduating high school seniors. Semifinalists were the highest scoring program entrants in each state and represented less than one percent of the nation’s seniors.
To become a finalist, each semifinalist had to complete a detailed scholarship application, which included writing an essay, describing leadership positions and contributions in school and community activities, showing an outstanding academic record, and being endorsed and recommended by a high school official. Semifinalists also had to take the SAT or ACT and earn scores that confirmed their performance on the initial qualifying test. From the semifinalist group, over 15,000 attained finalist standing, and about half of the finalists were chosen to receive National Merit Scholarships.
Levy would fund multiple projects in South King County. Primary election is Aug. 5.
Sanat Pillai of Liberty High School is one of 7,100 National Merit Scholarship winners for 2025.
From the Renton police log.