More Than 120 Houston Students Named National Merit Semifinalists

HOUSTON, TX — More than 120 high school students from Houston and many more from the Greater Houston metro have been named semifinalists in the 2022 National Merit Scholarship competition.

Semifinalists were chosen based on scores from the Preliminary SAT/National Merit Scholarship Qualifying Test taken during the 2020-21 school year. The top 16,000 scorers were named semifinalists.

To become National Merit Scholarship finalists, the semifinalist and high school officials must submit a detailed scholarship application that includes information on their academic record, participation in school and community activities, information on how they demonstrate leadership, employment history and any honors they've received.

A high school official must also recommend the student, while both of them write an essay about themselves while scoring high on their SAT or ACT.

Of the 16,000 semifinalists, approximately 15,000 will become finalists and will be announced in February.

Here are the students chosen as semifinalists from the Houston area.

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Cypress

Cy-Fair High School

• Alejandro Cantu
• Lillian F. Chang
• Catherine J. Sabotta
• Carson R. Stark

Cypress Creek High School

• Yahya Sohail

Cypress Falls High School

• Jenny Lu

Cypress Ranch High School

• Miguel Kalen M. Alarcon

Cypress Woods High School

• Tanvi S. Khandekar
• Phuc H. Le
• Benjamin J. Yonas

Homeschool

• Leah Sullivan
• Molly C. Sullivan

Jersey Village High School

• Isaac B. Sal

Langham Creek High School

• Parnika Mandewalkar
• Ashvin Ramabadran

Friendswood

Clear Brook High School

• Victoria K. Nguyen
• Evelyn Tran
• Joanne A. Tran

Friendswood High School

• Chumeng Cai
• Connor W. Gibson
• Balint O. Kidd

Galveston

Odyssey Academy

• Elijah H. Jones

Houston

Awty International School

• Maxime Defossez
• Esther S. Gao
• Gabriel A. Gomez
• Matthew B. Mekha
• Anika Sarna
• Connor M. Smith

Carnegie Vanguard High School

• Disha Bhattacharya
• Perrin Calzada
• Caitlin M. Dorn
• Sidharth Draksharam
• David M. Guan
• Gowtham Kadiyala
• Nikitha Kota
• Tina Li
• Jessica K. Lin
• Hari K. Rajagopal
• Srikar Siripuram
• Tegh S. Thind
• Jennifer N. Ton
• Samuel S. Zhang

Clear Lake High School

• Alexander R. King
• Alexander J. Lee
• Luana Liao
• Mark A. Luo
• Jack McBurnett
• Etienne A. Reine
• Allen Y. Shen
• Tatiana N. Vassiliev
• Rebecca Wang
• Tiana Z. Wang
• Richard G. Xu

Benjamin O. Davis High School

• Renny G. Hoang

Michael E. De Bakey High School For Health Professions

• Pranav Chemudupaty
• Charlise Giang
• Megan E. MacLeay
• Kevin Song

Emery-Weiner School

• Ryan Zhao

Heights High School

• Roma D. Kerby

Homeschool

• Carter R. Hidalgo
• Grace M. Styskal

Houston Christian High School

• Jonathan D. Chen
• John D. McCollister

Houston Quran Academy

• Musa B. Fareed

Incarnate Word Academy

• Nicole M. Cross
• Emily C. Quin

Kinder High School for the Performing and Visual Arts

• Matthew Fu
• Ronen S. Wenderfer
• Saranna Zhang

Kinkaid School

• Catherine G. Beilstein
• Connor Blake
• Vedul V. Palavajjhala
• Kee W. Shaper
• Patrick C. Solcher
• Trace S. St Julian
• Ravi Yalamanchili

Mirabeau B. Lamar High School

• Alexander M. Koong
• Craig A. Meikleham

Lutheran South Academy

• Luke E. Anderson

Memorial High School

• Sophie M. Czelusta
• Victoria Gong
• Ahmad F. Hadidi
• Stephen T. Kang
• Avantika Matele
• Delaney B. Polocheck
• Chloe W. Pruett
• Joowon Seok
• Lena A. Sugg
• Lane A. VanderVoort
• Lauren T. Wall
• Daniel Y. Xu
• Alex S. Yoon

Second Baptist School

• Grayson A. Kim
• Jeffrey J. Kim
• Naomi Konuma

Spring Branch Academic Institute

• Alex Zhang

St. Agnes Academy

• Nicole M. Ahlgren
• Kate K. Litton
• Juliana M. Pratt
• Kaeden R. Reese
• Karis R. Williams

St. John's School

• Maira Ansari
• Megan D. Chang
• Ella X. Chen
• Maria S. Cheng
• Luis Gabriel J. De La Cruz
• Pragya Devashish
• Olivia Q. Doan
• Curtis J. Donovan
• Alexander Elliott
• Michael M. Greer
• Nyla R. Hartigan
• Celine H. Huang
• Natalie L. King
• Romit Kundagrami
• Russell A. Li
• Eugene G. McCarty
• Brad Raizner
• Hannah L. Woodhouse
• Richard Z. Zheng

St. Thomas High School

• Thanh-Vinh McColloster
• Elijah W. Phillips

Strake Jesuit College Preparatory

• Mason M. Abrell
• Jackson A. Berger
• Vail A. Chen
• Christopher J. Demoor
• Andrew W. Hung
• Grigoriy Y. Nikulin
• Kile R. Stenoien
• Jonathan S. Taffet
• Jarvis Y. Xie

Stratford High School

• Cameron L. Donley
• Megan E. Guy
• Caden S. Wang
• John R. Weatherly

Trinity Classical School

• Helen S. Wagner

Village School

• Arjun Bala-Mehta
• Esha Garg
• Nathaneal S. Kumar
• Connor H. Nguyen

Westchester Academy of International Studies

• Angela M. Alvarado

Westside High School

• Ethan S. Nava Maldonado
• Kelly Shih

Katy

British International School

• Authencia Tioanda, Authencia
• Batyr Zhangabylov

Cinco Ranch High School

• Charles Chen
• Sarah H. Chung
• Brandon M. Guo
• Jiyeon Jeon
• Connor Oberg
• Sharon W. Rong
• Aaryan Sagar
• Ethan Wang
• Christine A. Wu
• Daniel Y. Yoon

Homeschool

• Leo Lei
• Rosalyn R. Lu
• Abigail Thompson

Katy High School

• Anh T. Nguyen,
• Arman J. Saxena

Mayde Creek High School

• Jonathan Huang

Seven Lakes High School

• Varvara Buben
• Yi Chen
• Dinesh Elanchezhian
• April K. Feng
• Madison R. Hill
• Brian T. Ho
• Cathy Hou
• Crystal C. Huang
• Noelle E. Larsen
• Jack Lee
• Yu Lim
• Alisa Y. Lu
• Samitha V. Nemirajaiah
• Kyle C. Nobles
• Shriya Pendyala
• Siddharth Ravva
• Mary N. Rumsey
• Siddharth Shanbhag
• Paul C. Swingle
• Stephanie Wang
• Elizabeth Wu
• Alice J. Xu
• Sooyeon Yang
• Korina Zhang
• Rachel K. Zhang
• Joshua J. Zhou

St. John XXIII College Preparatory

• Janice H. Lin
• Gray A. Podolak
• Mary Margaret E. Speed

James E. Taylor High School

• Ruixue R. Bai
• Katherine A. Jones
• Jaein Lee
• Jason E. Lee
• Nayoung Lee
• Rachael Lee
• Mitchell L. Shadden
• Richard W. Shim
• Joseph J. Thang
• Karen P. Wang

Obra D. Tompkins High School

• Neha Arvinth
• Visruth V. Chakka
• Tejas Cheeti
• Michael S. Chung
• Cindy X. Du
• Emily C. Edwards
• Ryan H. Haisler
• Kshitij Kapoor
• Rahul Karthik
• Amber Kaul
• Amrutha N. Kosanaum
• Max C. Liu
• Arjun M. Madana
• Robert B. Odom
• Eashaan Prasanna
• Joey S. See
• Jiya U. Shah
• Allen I. Sun
• David T. Vanderklay
• Luke Venkataramanan
• Soumil Voma

La Porte

La Porte High School

• Anthony Zambrano

League City

Clear Falls High School

• Acadia L. Ferguson

Clear Springs High School

• Rachel M. Goss
• Sidharth K. Pavuluri
• Grace Zhou

Needville

Needville High School

• Asher D. Watson

Pearland

Glenda Dawson High School

• Neeraj Anantha
• Elaine L. Chang
• Andy H. Gu
• Charles W. Gundlach
• Bidisha Halder
• Bryan Y. Li
• Jorryn Q. Li
• Edwin N. Ling
• Stephen T. Mao
• Aruna S. Muthupillai
• Michael R. Pasala
• Helen E. Sanderson
• Isabella B. Soares
• Melissa S. Tariq Rodriguez
• Enjia Wang
• Raina M. Zhang

Shadow Creek High School

• Owen Cai
• Samah Haidar
• Garrett Sassin, Garrett
• Aditya Udaygiri
• Ananya Udaygiri

Tomball

Tomball Memorial High School

• Jianyi J. Xu