Odessa High School senior Anika Gundlapalli has done her school proud.
The 16-year-old senior is a National Merit Semifinalist. This is the first time in two years OHS has had one. Gundlapalli found out about her recognition in the last week of September or early October. It was from the PSAT score she got in October of her junior year.
As part of the National Merit process, she took the SAT in December of last year.
“I was really excited. I was really happy,” she said of the achievement.
To prepare, she took a lot of the practice tests available online and made sure to study every day.
Gundlapalli and her brother have competed in the Scripps National Spelling Bee.
Preparing for that helped a little bit with the vocabulary on the standardized tests. It also helped her stay motivated, disciplined and sticking to a routine.
Gundlapalli was recognized at the Ector County ISD Board of Trustees meeting Oct. 17 along with other National Merit Scholarship and College Board honorees.
“It’s exciting,” Gundlapalli said in an Oct. 16 interview. “It’s really nice of them to do that … I’m very grateful for the school’s support and the district’s support with all of this. Miss (Angelica) Moreno, the college counselor and career guidance counselor, really helped with this whole process.”
Lisa Roth, the International Baccalaureate coordinator, was also helpful in helping Gundlapalli gather more information about the National Merit process.
Gundlapalli said she doesn’t know if she likes taking standardized tests, but she likes feeling prepared when she does.
“I usually do get nervous before standardized tests, but whenever I’m given the test and I start it, I just completely focus on the test,” Gundlapalli said.
She is an International Baccalaureate candidate at OHS. She is in varsity choir, started a club to help tutor students for the SAT and PSAT to answer any of their questions and started a mental health support group last year as a social-emotional learning support group.
“I would get together with a group of students and we actually use the first the Teen Mental Health First Aid curriculum to learn more about mental health challenges and how we could help the students around us to get help from counselors and different mental health professionals,” Gundlapalli said.
There were less than 10 students in the group.
“We discovered that a lot of kids didn’t know the avenues they could go through to get mental health help,” she added.
Gundlapalli does not know what college she will attend yet, but she hopes that whatever it is she can participate in or start a similar support group.
She plans to pursue a career in the medical field, specifically a physician. Both her parents are doctors.
“After volunteering at the hospital for the past few summers, I really understood how much I wanted to be a physician and I became very committed to a career in medicine,” Gundlapalli said.
For students that want to strive for National Merit Semifinalist status, Gundlapalli said she would advise them to use all the materials online.
“There are a lot of free materials. Khan Academy is really helpful; all the practice tests, I would say to go over them and to really understand why you made mistakes if you make a mistake, and just really understand the format of the test,” she added.
Gundlapalli noted that the IB program at OHS is amazing.
“I love all of my teachers. I learned so much in each of my classes. All my teachers are very passionate about what they teach and I think it really reflects on the learning process of the students and really allows them to learn a lot of information about a subject,” Gundlapalli said.
OHS Principal Anthony Garcia said they are thrilled for Gundlapalli and her family.
Garcia added that it is a well deserved accomplishment. “She’s a very hardworking young lady that puts a lot of effort into achieving her goals,” he said.
