NATIONAL MERIT SEMIFINALISTS IN 2015:

Sixty-three Katy ISD Seniors have been named as National Merit Scholarship Semifinalists by the National Merit Corporation.  These students, among the 16,000 named nationally now have an opportunity to compete for 7,600 National Merit Scholarships worth more than $33 million. They will know later in the year if they are a recipient. 

Attaining this level of achievement on the PSAT also provides these students with a leg up in being accepted at the university of their choice as well as receiving other scholarships as well.

Interestingly the amount of scholarship funding is down from the $35 million that was available last year and the 7,600 National Merit Scholarships are fewer than the 8,000 offered last year.

Perhaps the fact that more students are skipping the PSAT and SAT which are controlled by a leftist leader to take the ACT instead--it being more of an academic challenge, accounts for the lowered funding and number of scholarships.

The dumbed down version of the SAT will go into effect for this year's high school freshmen.  Read about that move elsewhere in this section.

Also parents should note that only three Katy ISD high schools are represented in these NMSF's.  They are all on the south side of the freeway.  If the school district is going to crow about these students, then they also have to take the blame for NOT having any NMSF's from the north side high schools.  The buildings are the same, the teachers are equally qualified, the curriculum is the same.  The only fact that is different is that the students who achieved this honor have parents who more than likely have been teaching them at home since they could talk.  It is those parents who deserve a pat on the back as well as the students themselves.

Cinco Ranch High School: 

Sumeet Agarwal, Dylan Bray, Raeedah Choudhury, John Dial, Tifenn Drouaud, Alexandra Du, Jacqueline Huang, Raymond Huang, Yaokun Huang, Seo Yun Jang, Yeeun Jung, Jiwoo Lee, Qiuyu Li, Andrew Ni, Luis Plata, Spencer Taylor, Jenny Xiao, Christina Xu, and James Yoder.

Seven Lakes High School:

Keyon Amirpanahi, Tawsif Azad, Elissa Barnett, Deeksha Bidare, Michael Brenan, Colby Brown, Rohan Chakraborty, Linhan Chen, Nishant Deshmukh, Jana D'Souza, Melissa Fu, Laura Hu, Jenny Kim, Michael Pan, Sarah Stokes, Sameer Suresh, Michael Tian, Nicole Ting, Ashney Vyas, Eden Williams, and Diana Xu.

Taylor High School:

Ryan Albosta, Jeremiah Coholich, Ishani Desai, Matias Hanco, Miles Hubscher, John Kim, Krithika Kuppusamy, Adelaide Kwon, Albert Li, James Luo, Marianne Olsen, Cean Park, Matthew Rossen, Emily Saunders, Amrutha Srinivasan, Leah Stevenson, Jeannette Xu, Kevin Xu, Neel Yerneni, Mehrad Yousefi, Andy Yu, Safiyya Zaidi, and Emily Zhang.