Five Indian Americans named Dell Scholars

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Five Indian American high school students have been named 2018 Dell Scholars by the Michael & Susan Dell Foundation.

Sita Bhandari of Richland Collegiate High School of Math Science in Dallas, Texas; Amrit Chauhan and Manjot Singh, both from River Valley High School in Yuba City, California; Harleen Kaur of Sunnyside High School in Fresno, California and Pooja Patel from Dr. Phillips High School in Orlando, Florida, were among 500 high school students who have demonstrated the drive to succeed and persist toward achieving a bachelor’s degree.

Dell Scholars has supported more than 4,300 students from across the country over the last 14 years and announced its largest scholars class of 500 this year.

“Our success – 75 percent of our scholars obtain a degree within six years – is primarily attributable to our students’ hard work, perseverance and ability to overcome the substantial obstacles that often derail low-income, first-generation college goers,” Todd Penner wrote on the foundation’s blog.

“As we welcome this new class, we are humbled by working with such amazing students and proud of all they have achieved so far. It’s our mission to provide them with the support they need to complete college and earn their degrees,” he added.

The Dell Scholars program offers $20,000, a laptop and textbook credits along with services and solutions for students and their families, addressing individual and systemic issues that can create major barriers to student success.

The program is looking for students who showed grit “by overcoming personal challenges in your life related to your family, school or community,” potential by participating in college readiness programs, and “seeking out academic rigor” and ambition by “dreaming of obtaining a college degree,” and it will work with students to ensure they have the tools needed to complete college with a degree in hand.