The Indian American community is perceived to rank amongst the most affluent in America. This is evident in the lavish manner in which marriage functions are staged or funds are collected for various India based non-profits or building temples and other places of worship. However, when it comes to honoring excellence in the youth of the community in America, Indian American community has not paid much attention. So, raising funds for the scholarship program has always been an uphill task. Nevertheless, the Foundation has succeeded to raise funds for scholarships from well-meaning and committed members of the community in greater Los Angeles area. The annual award function is acknowledgment of the continued generosity of the sponsors who have steadfastly supported the cause.

We started with eight scholarship awards ranging from $200 to $1000. Over the years, the number has been increased to twenty-four while the amount for high school graduates ranges from $750 to $2000. In addition to giving scholarships for academic excellence, four awards are given for outstanding achievements in Math and Science, sports, visual and performing arts and community service.

Every award comes with a rider—who are judging the awardees? In order to make the event credible you must have a system of selection of judges. Please elaborate?

SAT score and GPA require no judging. But we require an independent panel of three to five judges to evaluate extracurricular activities of the applicants. Judges’ score for each applicant is fed into the computer and then average score for each applicant is worked out. The judges also verify the accuracy of the quiz grading and computer data entry for final computation to computer-select the winners. Based on the number of applicants, we need three to five groups of judges who spend four to six hours grading the applicants.