NATIONAL MERIT SEMIFINALISTS IN 2016:
With more seniors, more high schools, and more total students, there are fewer Katy ISD National Merit Semifinalists in 2016 than there were in 2015. The number dropped from 63 last year to 51 this year. That is a 19% drop from the previous year! This is a significant decline and reflects one of the many results of a dumbed down KISD curriculum.
Notice too, that there are no National Merit Semifinalists from Katy High School, Mayde Creek High School or Morton Ranch High School. What that tells us is that KISD does not get to take credit for these scholars--their parents do, because these students, more than likely, are being taught at home. The curriculum that Katy ISD delivers is horrible, and this result is the proof! If it worked, there would be at least one NMF from each of these high schools. No one can tell me that the students at these high schools are not capable of strong academic work. IQ's don't get spread around like that.
Wednesday, September 09, 2015
Today, the National Merit Scholarship Corporation released the names of approximately 16,000 semifinalists in the 2016 National Merit Scholarship Program. A total of 51 of these talented seniors are from Katy ISD. As semifinalists, these students now have a chance to compete for some 7,400 National Merit Scholarships, worth more than $32 million, that will be offered in spring 2016.
Katy ISD's 2016 semifinalists are:
Cinco Ranch High School: Ruan de Villiers, Sadid Khan, Jaein Kim, Justin Kleiber, Elizabeth Robinson and William Xu. (Nineteen last year, six this year)
Seven Lakes High School: Harini Balakrishnan, Michael Burton, Sarah Campbell, Keerthana Chakka, Brandon Chang, James Chen, Kevin Cheng, Daniel De Angulo, Anusha Gandhi, Jonathan Gomez, Connie Guo, Avni Halabe, Grace Kim, Li Kwan, Aaron Liao, Alice Liu, Akshay Punnoose, Rishabh Rai, Tanmaya Shrivastava, Pranay Tamminayana, Ruoning Xu, Congxi Ye, and Stephanie Zhou. (Twenty three last year, twenty three this year)
Taylor High School: Minse Cha, Shawna Chen, Yongseok Choi, Robert Costis, Carol Cox, Jayne Hubscher, Cheryl Li, Chufan Liang, Eric Liu, Deepa Muthusamy, Thomas Nguyen, Kyler Powell, Jiasheng Qin, Shawn Xu, James Yang, and Megan Yu. (Twenty three last year, sixteen this year)
Tompkins High School: Spandana Akkaraju, Ishani Chakravarty, Esther Lee, Melinda Wang, Emily Yang, and Andy Ye. (None last year --no seniors--, six this year)
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.