NATIONAL MERIT SEMIFINALISTS IN 2014:

 

The National Merit Scholarship Corporation recently released the names of approximately 16,000 semifinalists in the 2014 National Merit Scholarship Program.  A total of 37 of these talented seniors are from Katy ISD.  As semifinalists, these students now have a chance to compete for some 8,000 National Merit Scholarships, worth more than $35 million, that will be offered in spring 2014. 

In order to become a finalist, all semifinalists must maintain an outstanding academic record throughout high school, be endorsed and recommended by a high school official, write an essay, and earn SAT scores that confirm the student's earlier performance on the qualifying test.

The PSAT is taken in the 11th grade for consideration of this award. 

Only three of Katy ISD's six qualifying high schools were able to place students as Merit Semifinalists.

CINCO RANCH HIGH SCHOOL:

Akira Bai, Nicolas Bergbauer, Muhtadi Choudhury, Lilly Fang, Christopher Fisher, Matthew Gaikema, Connie Ge, Joey Gu, Sarina Madhavan, Kelly McComas, Ross Miglin, Aduj Rajan, Kimberly Rogers, Gradey Wang, William Waters, Catherine Wu, Jessica Yi, and Felix Yu.

SEVEN LAKES HIGH SCHOOL:

Meera Devarajan, Jaewook Lee, Yanyi Liu, Rahan Murthy, Ojas Potnis, Anthony Qi, Kamia Rathore, Nathan Rebello, Siddharth Seethepalli, Yuchen Song, Vidisha Srivastav, Monica Su, and Elizabeth Zudock.

TAYLOR HIGH SCHOOL:

Susan Elliott, Michael Gray, Austin Kuo, Dhanatcha Sadetaporn, Evan Toler, and Jonathan Zong.

There were no National Merit Semifinalists from Katy High School, Mayde Creek High School or Morton Ranch High School.

What a shame it is when we have the same fancy buildings on the north side of the freeway as we do on the south side, when we have the same educated teachers on the north side of the freeway as on the south side of the freeway who make identical salaries, and we have the same curriculum being used on both sides of the freeway, and yet somehow, things don't turn out the same!

Could it be that the PARENTS of these students are the key to the mystery?  And don't anyone tell me that it is economics or genetics.  There are just as many smart poor kids on the north side as there are smart well off kids on the south side.  There's obviously something wrong with the schools, what they are teaching and the way they are teaching it! These recipients owe their PARENTS a debt of gratitude for teaching them at home and making certain that they knew what they needed to know in order to be excellent students.