National Merit Scholarship Semifinalists named

Eighteen seniors from Spring Branch ISD high schools were recently named as Semifinalists in the annual National Merit Scholarship Program, one of the nation’s highest student honors.

In all, 84 SBISD seniors won recognition this year in the following categories: 18 National Merit Semifinalists; 17 National Hispanic Recognition Program Finalists; one National Achievement Scholar; and 48 National Merit Commended Scholars.

Many of these students will be honored Oct. 28 at the SBISD Board of Trustees regular monthly meeting. All National Merit Scholarship Program Semifinalists may qualify for more than 8,000 National Merit Scholarships based on their performance last year on the Preliminary SAT/National Merit Scholarship Qualifying Test (PSAT/NMSQT).

The national scholarships are valued at more than $35 million. More than 1.5 million U.S. students in 22,000 high schools took the PSAT/NMSQT qualifying test last year. About 16,000 Semifinalists were named nationwide.

These students reflect the highest scoring test takers across Texas and other states. Final winners of the 2013 National Merit Scholarship will be announced in Spring 2014.

To qualify for these business and corporate scholarships, semifinalists must have an outstanding academic high school record, write an essay, be endorsed and recommended by school officials, and earn qualifying high SAT scores.

In other recognition areas, National Hispanic Recognition Program Finalists are identified for their high test scores and self-reported Hispanic heritage. There are about 1,600 of these scholars nationwide this year.

National Achievement Scholars have been identified and named for their high test scores and for their African-American heritage. National Commended Scholars represent the group of highest scoring students after the National Merit Semifinalists.

This year, about 34,000 students nationwide qualified for this recognition.

National Merit Semifinalists:

Memorial High – Kendra Andersen, Brenna Black, George Chen, Yae Jee Hong, Grant Kirchhofer, Nam Hoon Lee, Rajat Mehndiratta, Matthew Nguyen, Mary Margaret Rotan, Stephen Snow, Jonnathan Sullins, Wan Seo Park

Spring Woods High – Nicolas Turnbough

Stratford High – Nathaniel Barbour, John Ryan Hormell, Katherine Kennedy, Hannah Lindsey, Reason Russell

National Hispanic Recognition Program Finalists:

Memorial High – Briana Burns, Benjamin de Alvarez, Marcus De Ayala, Anna Economos, David Hartmann, Romelia Herrera Valle, Vitoria Moreno-Costa

Spring Woods High – Christian Rice

Stratford High – Abril Brugo, Leila Wahab, Axel Garcia, Hernan Cepeda, Abigail Brown, Diana Ruiz, Emily Crawford

Westchester Academy for International Studies – Adam Kassir, Jacob Saenz

National Achievement Scholars:

Stratford High – Nathaniel Barbour

National Merit Commended Scholars:

Memorial High – Jessica Anderson, Callie Beard, Holden Brown, Madison Chambers, Christopher Chou, Jonathan Chung, Ryan Cowell, David Cremins, Daniel Gawerc, Joseph Guerrant, Carroll Herring, Neik Khansari, Yae Eun Kim, Nikhil Kumar, Haley Kurisky, Anna Lai, Justin Lee, James Livingston, Yoseph Maguire, Vitoria Moreno-Costa, John Pruitt, Erin Roberts, Byoung Ryu, Alison Strealy, Sophie Wilczynski, Tiffany Wu, Winnie Wu, Xiayu Xu, Stephen Young

Spring Woods High – Marissa Clark

Stratford High – Abigail Brown, Ahmed Butt, Weijie Cheng, Sarah Davis, Alexis Frederick, Mary K. Goss, Leah Hunt, Caroline Kelly, Stephen Krueger, Katherine Leggett, Eila Motley, Elaine Parizot, Benjamin Riedel, Anye Ye, Christy Zhang

Westchester Academy for International Studies – Keeli Armitage, Connor June, Adam Kassir, David Pham