(FORT BEND ISD) – A total of 82 Fort Bend ISD high school seniors have been named semifinalists in the 2024 National Merit Scholarship Program, making FBISD the district with more semifinalists than any other school system in the region.
“This achievement is evidence of the excellence that exists in Fort Bend ISD and it’s a testament to the amazing teachers who instruct, train, nurture and mentor our children,” FBISD Superintendent Dr. Christie Whitbeck said. “This is one of the reasons our district continues to be a ‘Destination District’ where parents are drawn to live, work and raise their families. The community support our district enjoys is outstanding and we greatly appreciate it.”
Fort Bend ISD students are among 16,000 semifinalists in the 69th annual National Merit Scholarship Program. These academically talented students have an opportunity to continue in the competition and win one of three types of National Merit Scholarships worth nearly $28 million combined. The awards will be announced beginning next April through July 2024.
Merit scholars are selected on the basis of their skills, accomplishments, and potential for success in rigorous college studies. The scholars are students who score in the top one percent in the nation on their college entrance exams.
High school juniors entered the 2024 National Merit Scholarship Program by taking the 2022 Preliminary SAT/National Merit Scholarship Qualifying Test, which served as an initial screen of program entrants. The semifinalists represent less than one percent of all U.S. high school seniors.
To become a finalist, each semifinalist and a high school official must submit a detailed scholarship application, in which they provide information about the semifinalist’s academic record, participation in school and community activities, demonstrated leadership abilities, employment, and honors and awards received. A semifinalist must have an outstanding academic record throughout high school, be endorsed and recommended by a high school official, write an essay, and earn SAT or ACT scores that confirm the student’s earlier performance on the qualifying test.
Here are Fort Bend ISD’s 2024 National Merit Scholarship Semifinalists:
Austin High School
Anusha Adusumilli
Margaret Jia
Aashi S. Kasotia
Ahmed A. Kazi
Chloe Y. Lee
Mahika P. Natarajan
Pia Saha
Jessica A. Smith
Alexander R. Wang
Andy Y. Wei
Ziduo Yi
Ryan Yuan
Clements High School
Enoch Y. Amat
Aryan D. Arora
Aryan Bora
Aaron W. Chen
David W. Chen
Anne M. Christiono
Anthony Du
Qimiao Gong
Rohan Gummadi
Nischay Hegde
Wenda Huang
Adam Hwang
Alexander Y. Jun
Ruhi Kelkar
Anurag R. Kumar
Tina Li
Om H. Patel
Paloma Pichardo
Ruchika A. Sanghi
Rianna R. Skaria
Alexander M. Song
Kavya M. Vaidyanathan
Joshua M. Wan
Emma V. Wang
Hanyi Wu
Viola R. Xu
Leo Y. Zhang
William C. Zuo
Dulles High School
Anushka Aggarwal
Anantshri N. Asthana
Isaac N. Chacko
Akhila R. Chikkula
Jeffrey B. Copold
Maria Elahi
Brionna Grapeson
Saikrishna K. Gundlapalli
Juliana F. Horiszny
Pablo J. Jonsson
Tran T. Lam
Boping Li
Justin J. Li
Caleb A. Lin
Benjamin Tri M. Nguyen
Jayani Pradhan
Iana M. Sajith
Ronil M. Shah
Allen A. Thomas
Dan D. Tran
Aishwaryaa H. Udeshi
Jason A. Wu
Maggie Y. Yuan
Elkins High School
Alina R. Ali
Jie Dai
Nnamdi J. Ilochonwu
Darena D. Nguyen
Carson W. Padilla
Brendan P. Ryan
Dev B. Shroff
Kelly Yin
Hightower High School
Arshi M. Maniar
Mhyank S. Sekhar
Eric J. Thekkel
Kempner High School
Jai R. Pillai
Ridge Point High School
Christian L. Devenish
Zachary L. Mok
Travis High School
Evan Chang
Rohan T. Dharia
Crystal J. Fu
Haider Mahdi
Ayaan Sunesara