On September 9 officials of National Merit Scholarship Corporation (NMSC®)

announced the names of more than 16,000 semifinalists in the 72nd annual National Merit

Scholarship Program.


These academically talented high school seniors have an opportunity to

continue in the competition for about 6,700 National Merit Scholarships worth approximately

$24 million that will be offered next spring. To be considered for a Merit Scholarship® award,

semifinalists must fulfill several requirements to advance to the finalist level of the competition.


About 95 percent of the semifinalists are expected to attain Finalist standing, and approximately

half of the finalists will win a National Merit Scholarship, earning the Merit Scholar® title.

NMSC, a not-for-profit organization that operates without government assistance, was

established in 1955 specifically to conduct the annual National Merit Scholarship Program.

Scholarships are underwritten by NMSC with its own funds and by about 260 business organizations, higher education institutions, and individual donors that share NMSC’s goals of honoring the nation’s scholastic champions and encouraging the pursuit of academic excellence.


Over 1.2 million juniors in about 20,000 high schools entered the 2027 National Merit

Scholarship Program by taking the 2025 Preliminary SAT/National Merit Scholarship Qualifying

Test (PSAT/NMSQT®), which served as an initial screen of program entrants. The nationwide pool

of semifinalists, representing less than one percent of U.S. high school seniors, includes the

highest-scoring entrants in each state. The number of semifinalists in a state is proportional to the

state’s percentage of the national total of graduating seniors.


To become a Finalist, the semifinalist and a high school official must submit a detailed

scholarship application, in which they provide information about the semifinalist’s academic record,

participation in school and community activities, demonstrated leadership abilities, employment,

and honors and awards received. A semifinalist must have an outstanding academic record throughout high school, be endorsed and recommended by a high school official, write an essay, and

earn SAT® or ACT® scores that confirm the student’s earlier performance on the qualifying test.


From over 16,000 semifinalists, more than 15,000 are expected to advance to the finalist

level, and in February they will be notified of this designation. All National Merit Scholarship

winners will be selected from this group of finalists. Merit Scholar designees are selected on the

basis of their skills, accomplishments, and potential for success in rigorous college studies, without

regard to gender, race, ethnic origin, or religious preference.


Semifinalists from the greater Katy area include:

FULSHEAR

FULSHEAR H. S.

Nguyen, Kira T.

Nowotny, Grant W.

Wang, Dawei


KATY


CINCO RANCH H. S.

Chen, LuChuan

Deshpande, Lakshya

Di Lascio, Juan A.

Lee, Nathan W.

Park, Dain

Shen, Allen

Shin, Jacob H.

Tian, Sophia L.

Zhang, Valentina

Zhou, Sean Z.


JORDAN H. S.

Arunchander, Aaryan

Chakrabarti, Theia

Chen, Helen

Chirasani, Vibhav R.

Cooper, Aubrey R.

Deshpande, Mohini S.

Gangwar, Naisha

Gijoy, Noel

Hu, Jason

Jhaver, Ram

Kabra, Stuti

Krom, Brennan A.

Marquez, Brianna L.

Mohammed, Sameeha

Rajagopalan, Vikranth

Sarkar, Rajat

Siripurapu, Vishnu

Tang, Maxwell I.

Wu, Jessica Y.

Xu, Lydia Y.

Yu, Huanran

Zhou, Brandon


KATY H. S.

Gobar, Ethan T.

Matteson, Braden R.


PATRICIA E. PAETOW H. S.

Mahad, Syed


SEVEN LAKES H. S.

Akella, Aarush N.

Akella, Ainesh G.

Ambike, Aditya A.

Asif, Samin K.

Borkar, Aditi P.

Chen, Andy

Damdar, Grace V.

Desai, Riva S.

Dong, Eric Z.

Fang, Anchee

Gao, Grace L.

Georghiou, Melissa E.

Guo, Kelvin Y.

Gupta, Ananya

Hefny, Shahd A.

James, Nevin J.

Jiang, Nengzhi M.

Jones Anicio, Vitor

Katole, Advik A.

Kumar, Amrita L.

Kumar, Mansa

Lee, Jonathan K.

Li, Alvin

Li, Audrey M.

Li, Justin C.

Lin, Feliks Y.

Long, Claire

MacGregor, Jackson N.

Maini, Tavish

Pham, Audrey V.

Sanampuri, Nayaneshwar

Sankaran, Sai P.

Sarkar, Aditya

Stone, Christopher M.

Tran, Ngoc K.

Trinh, Aidan B.

Wang, Karen Z.

Wei, Justin Z.

Xie, Grace J.

Xie, Hannah J.

Xie, Samuel J.

Yu, Austin T.

Yue, Alan

Zhu, Andrew E.

Zoeller-McCarthy, Elisabeth


JAMES E. TAYLOR H. S.

Chi, Eileen

Dhafer, Abdullah

Genoux-Lubain, Milan A.

Pu, Sunny S.

Yang, Phillip J.


OBRA D. TOMPKINS H. S.

Cen Chang, Fernando J.

Cho, Yujin

Gargya, Guhan S.

Hynds, Hunter K.

Khan, Asad R.

Kidwai, Muhammad Shaheer Kar

Kim, Taegyeom

Kondaskar, Saanvi P.

Lebsack, Alexander P.

Nemmara, Sachith H.

Ni, Sophia X.

Rana, Ojas

Schubert, Isabelle G.

Sivasubramaniam, Nishan

Yan, Nathan

Yu, Maxwell B.

Zimmerman, Adam N.


PRIVATE SCHOOLS


ST. JOHN XXIII COLLEGE PREPARATORY

Hoang, Giovanni

Phalen, Sophia