A Franklin Community High School senior and four Center Grove High School seniors are all a step away from receiving National Merit Scholarships.
Morgan Harvey of Franklin Community High School, along with Grant Embrey, Gowthamm Mandala, Walker Milhoff and Micah Robertson from Center Grove High School all advanced to the final round of the nationwide scholarship contest in February after posting scores in the top 1% of the nation for the PSAT. After reaching the semifinals in September, they also were required to complete an application, including an essay, SAT or ACT score submissions and a list of extracurricular activities and accomplishments. Now, among about 15,000 finalists across the country, they will be in consideration for $2,500 scholarships.
Morgan Harvey
Harvey, the sole scholarship recipient from Franklin Community High School, is interested in entering the engineering field, with a goal of addressing climate change and making public spaces more inclusive to marginalized groups, Harvey said.
“We are on the verge of a climate crisis and anything I can do to help with that, I would be cool with. I’m also interested in how infrastructure can shape the world around us,” she said. “I want to lend voices to people who were traditionally ignored in engineering and society. These groups include LGBTQ+, which I am a part of. Some public spaces are not the greatest for LGBTQ+ people, with public restrooms one example of that.”
Harvey has gotten into Georgia Tech University and Purdue University, and is waiting to hear back from Cornell University and the University of California, Davis. Harvey is part of the Mayor’s Youth Leadership Council, Bear Attack literary magazine, band and debate club.
Grant Embrey
Embrey has been on the Center Grove High School robotics team for four years, serving as engineering captain this year. His time on the team helped bolster his love of engineering.
He’s been accepted to Purdue University and Georgia Tech University. Along with robotics, he’s part of the Quiz Bowl team, Math National Honors Society and Bible Club.
“I was always interested in engineering, but I had little to no outlet until I joined robotics freshmen year. Then, I was 100% sure engineering was what I wanted to do,” Embrey said. “I’m interested in transportation and specifically how it steers into aerospace.”
Gowthamm Mandala
Mandala’s accomplishments extend far beyond the footprint of Center Grove High School. He was one of 150 students to be invited to a national Quiz Bowl tournament in Chicago
and is the Indiana State Vice President for Future Health Professionals. He plans to pursue a career in health care, has been accepted to the University of Toronto and is awaiting
decisions from several Ivy League universities, along with Massachusetts Institute of Technology and Johns Hopkins University, Mandala said.
Mandala plans to pursue a career in orthopedic or cardiac surgery, he said.
“All my aunts and uncles were some sort of engineer, but my grandma, who I was close to and spent a lot of summers with got a bad morphine addiction and ended up passing from that, which gave me motivation to go into medicine,” Mandala said. “My goal is to try and prevent people from experiencing what she had to experience.”
Walker Milhoff
Milhoff serves as president of the Spanish Honors Society and has volunteered with Center Grove Community School Corporation’s Blessings in a Backpack program, which sends bags of food to students from families who are financially disadvantaged. Milhoff is planning to
pursue a degree involving astronomy and has been accepted to Purdue University, but is awaiting decisions from other colleges, Milhoff said.
“I love science,” he said. “It was always between geology and astronomy, but space in general interested me since I was little. I had space stuff on my walls and a WALL-E blanket.”
Micah Robertson
When he’s not competing on the basketball court, Robertson has his eye on achieving in the classroom. He’s earned accolades for his academic achievements as a student-athlete, and takes part in the Math National Honors Society and the Fellowship of Christian Athletes. Robertson, who has committed to Indiana University, will pursue studies in computer science, engineering and mathematics. His interest in engineering comes from his hobby of woodworking and interest in design, Robertson said.
For his essay, he wrote about his potential to continue a college legacy his father started. Robertson’s father was the first person in his family to graduate college, after both his father’s parents didn’t attend classes beyond middle school, Robertson said.
“He learned the value of an education and the doors it can open for you,” he said. “I wrote about how the experience impacted me from him imparting that understanding to me and teaching me how thankful I should be for the gifts and abilities I’ve been given.”
