Seniors Vignav Ramesh and Anouk Yeh selected as Coca-Cola Scholars Regional Finalists

Every year, 150 students out of a pool of 60,000+ applicants are selected for the Coca-Cola Scholars Foundation’s $20,000 academic scholarship. The organization has provided $78 million to 6,600 scholars over the past 34 years. 

This year, 250 of 65,000 applicants were chosen by the foundation to become Coca-Cola Scholars regional finalists. SHS fielded two regional finalists: seniors Vignav Ramesh and Anouk Yeh.

Ramesh first heard about this opportunity when he was researching scholarships during the beginning of the school year, and Yeh saw the scholarship opportunity posted on Naviance, a college readiness software sponsored by the school. They both decided to apply during the college application process. 

The Coca-Cola scholarship is an achievement-based scholarship that selects applicants based on their “academics, leadership and dedication to the community.” Scholars apply and are selected after a three-phase process.

In the first phase, students list their grades, activities and employment. This year, after the preliminary round, 1617 students were selected from the applicant pool to become semifinalists and move onto phase 2 of the application.

In phase 2, applicants are required to write several short responses about their activities, craft three personal essays and submit two recommendation letters — one from a close adult and the other from the applicant’s counselor.

After phase 2, 250 applicants were selected as Regional Finalists. The third phase — which makes the final cut of 250 to 150 — consists of an interview with each regional finalist. 

For both Ramesh and Yeh, the first phase of the application was relatively simple, while the second phase was much more time consuming. 

“The first phase only took a few days for me to list all my activities, but the second phase was a lot harder because you had to write essays and short answers,” Ramesh said. “For example, there was a prompt about what community you find most meaningful, and it was hard for me to choose.” For this, Ramesh ended up talking about his startup — Zigantic — and the journey he went through when founding and scaling it.

Neither Ramesh nor Yeh expected to have made it as far as they did in the scholarship process. 

“It was pretty cool [to be selected] because the application was just typing in my activities and the time I spent doing them,” Yeh said. “I wasn’t expecting much, so I was kind of surprised.”

Similarly, Ramesh was surprised to be selected and hopes that he can continue moving through the competition.

“I just gave [the scholarship application] a shot, and I am really happy to be able to move onto the next step,” Ramesh said.