Students Named Cyber Scholars

Students Named Cyber Scholars

A group of Peddie students earned the prestigious National Cyber Scholarship as top scorers in an online cybersecurity training program sponsored by The National Cyber Scholarship Foundation.

By Angad Singh and Ryan Rong ’24

The National Cyber Scholarship Foundation (NCSF) is a national nonprofit organization with a mission to identify, nurture and empower the next generation of cybersecurity experts, while also bridging the cybersecurity skills gap in the United States. Thousands of high school students nationwide, including 15 Peddie students, participated in an exciting online cybersecurity training program sponsored by the NCSF, where they tackled various cybersecurity challenges to earn points. Top scorers in the program earned an invitation to participate in the Cyber Foundations Academy, a prestigious opportunity valued at more than $3,000, with bonus scholarships and prizes available. Out of more than 40,000 nationwide participants, 7% were selected for a National Cyber Scholarship (NCS).

Our Qualifiers and Finalists
Congratulations to the following students who qualified for a National Cyber Scholarship, and to those students recognized by the New Jersey Cybersecurity and Communications Integration Cell (NJCCIC) for ranking within the top 25 in New Jersey, earning them the Honors Award:

Edward Eum ’24
Phillip Han ’25 (7th in New Jersey)
Amanda Harmon ’25
Alvin Kim ’26
Tiger Li ’24
Phineas Mattis ’25
Anthony Morales ’24
Ryan Rong ’24 (13th in New Jersey)
Angad Singh ’24 (25th in New Jersey)
Savir Singh ’24
Kyle Song ’24
Andy Wang ’25 (15th in New Jersey)
Thomas Wen ’24
Sophia Wu ’24
Evan Xu ’25

These students have been named Scholars by the National Cyber Scholarship Foundation. In recognition of their achievement, they have earned an invitation to participate in the Cyber Foundations Academy, a multi-week online program based on the nationally-recognized SANS Foundations training course and certification.

“Competing in CyberStart was a really great experience! Having not been too involved in it last year, I decided to take it seriously this year. Whenever I had free time, I was found cracking a different CyberStart challenge, and I learned a lot about forensics, python, code-breaking and more. I think the key to our success was our tight-knit community; Ryan and I hosted help sessions where we all worked on CyberStart together, and we often gave each other hints if we couldn’t solve a problem. Overall, I’m so proud to be named a National Cyber Scholar and am really excited to further my knowledge with the Cyber Foundations Academy this summer.”- Angad

We’re thrilled to hear about our students’ experiences at the Cyber Foundations Academy and eagerly anticipate where their cybersecurity skills take them next! If you are interested in competing in the competition next year, you can email the CS Club compsciclub@peddie.org and start playing in CyberStart America, one of the qualification paths for the National Cyber Scholarship.