Fifty-two seniors from six Houston Independent School District high schools qualified as semifinalists this week in the 62nd annual National Merit Scholarship Program.
The HISD students are among 16,000 from across the country to earn the semifinalist designation, allowing them the opportunity to continue in the academic competition and vie for nearly $33 million in scholarships that will be awarded next year.
The students attend Bellaire, Booker T. Washington, Carnegie Vanguard, and Lamar high schools, DeBakey High School for Health Professions, and the High School for the Performing & Visual Arts.
“I am proud of these students as this level of distinction is a testament of their intellect and hard work,” said HISD Superintendent Richard Carranza. “HISD remains focused on ensuring students are college and career ready by providing them with challenging coursework, supportive educators and a commitment to excellence in all our schools.”
The National Merit Scholarship Program provides college scholarships to academically talented U.S. high school students who score well on the Preliminary SAT. Scholarships are provided to students from each state who have the strongest combination of accomplishments, skills and potential for college success.
Roughly 1.6 million high school juniors from across the country took the 2015 PSAT, which serves as the National Merit Scholarship Qualifying Test. Less than 1 percent — or 16,000 students —were named semifinalists. About 15,000 students are expected to advance to the finalist level. Finalists will be announced next year in February, and all National Merit Scholarship winners will be selected from the group of finalists.
HISD’s 2016-2017 National Merit Scholarship semifinalists are:
Bellaire High School
Edward D. Cen
Dongha Choi
Anusha De
Jonathan C. Dorsey
Sidharth Eric
Curran R. Han
Laurie Y. He
Anna E. Jorgensen
Venu Kantamani
Aneil Marathi
Oren Pazgal
Hannah Reeves
Michelle Tang
Clarise E. Trinh
Timothy Y. Wei
Aaron Wong
Jonathan D. Zhang
Yijie Zhang
Booker T. Washington High School
Adam J. Capfer
Carnegie Vanguard High School
Stephanie Chang
Ishaan Chatterjee
Elizabeth R. Goodfriend
Amrith Lotlikar
Robert D. Rice
Grace E. Vollmers
Olivia R. Williams
Michael Yang
Sarah K. Yun
DeBakey High School for Health Professions
Ashley P. Dao
Jelani Deajon-Jackson
Sashank Gogula
Jeong Han
Alex L. Jin
Nagendra K. Katta
Maryam B. Khan
Zoe O. Lovelace
Pragya Mishra
Vishnu G. Narayana
Shruti Natarajan
Roma S. Nayyar
Adam V. Nguyen
Andrew Park
Sameer A. Sidiq
Ray T. Wang
Vincent Zhang
High School for the Performing & Visual Arts
Olivia Elmers
Asad M. Khan
Augustin D. Liebster
Jacob R. Miller
Phillip Z. Shen
Bethany G. Vaughan
Lamar High School
Edward J. Swart