College scholarships awarded to deserving students
Welcoming faces…
On June 3, 2012 the Indian American Scholarship Fund (IASF) of IACA held its 20th annual banquet at the Indian Cultural and Religious Center in Smyrna to recognize members of high school classes of 2012 and award them with college scholarships. The IASF is a nonprofit organization that obtains all of its funds from local donors and sponsors. All money collected by IASF is distributed to students in educational materials and scholarships. The IASF organizing committee includes Ibrez Bandukwala, Akarsh Belagodu, Suvrat Bhargave, Naveen Dittikavi, Sekhar Ghosh, Wab Kadaba, Ritu Lohtia, Bindu Manocha, Sangeeta Mayur, Deepa Muralidhar, Raghu Reddy, and Anu Whitaker.
Dr. Ravi Sarma, founder of IASF and sponsor of the PV Rao four-year scholarship, stands with Hemandini Prakash, who is using it to attend Emory University.
This year’s class was very accomplished with an average SAT score of 2045 and even included a perfect score of 2400. Keep in mind that the average SAT score for students in Georgia is around 1500. The average GPA for this class was 3.9 with 22 students ranked in the top ten percent of their class, 10 of whom were in the top ten, and 5 were either salutatorians or valedictorians. In terms of extracurricular activities, nine were varsity athletes including three captains, 3 eagle scouts, a gold-award winning girl scout, yearbook editors, tournament level chess players, a Bausch & Lomb award winner, a homecoming queen, and a Wendy’s High School Heisman winner.
Students received a book titled How to Survive Your Freshman Year, handed out by Kaushal Tripathi, IACA president.
The banquet began with an introduction by Dr. Anuj Manocha, IASF chairman, who introduced Dr. Ravi Sarma, founder of IASF. Dr. Sarma addressed the class of 2012 and also gave valuable advice to the parents of the graduates. Mr. Kaushal Tripathi, current IACA president, presented each member of the class of 2012 with a gift. Finally, the process of giving the scholarships began. This year 25 scholarships were awarded, including four 4-year scholarships totaling over $35,500. The banquet highlighted the dedication to education and support of families with financial need. In addition to the scholarship banquet, a “college room” was led by Dr. Ritu Lohtia, where college students from Georgia Tech, University of Georgia, Emory, and Georgia State answered any questions that the high school seniors had and gave advice for their college experience.
We’re proud of you—and the future awaits!
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