Houston’s Graduating Seniors are Smart
The 2024 National Merit Scholarship Competition was a good year for Houston-area high school seniors. There were 466 area seniors who scored in the top 1% on the PSAT to earn the celebrated “Semifinalist” designation. This number was fairly stable compared to last year’s 476 Semifinalists and represents about 3% of all Semifinalists in the nation.
This article is for a previous year; please click here for the 2024-2025 results.
The year-long road to being named a National Merit Semifinalist starts in mid-October of the previous year (current juniors will start the process when they take the PSAT this October). Approximately 1.3 million students participated in this year’s competition, which is less than the previous year’s 1.5 million.
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Cutoff Scores for Texas National Merit Semifinalists and Commended Scholars
A National Merit Semifinalist (NMSF) is a student who scored in the top 1% of high school juniors on the PSAT in their state (October of 2022 for this year’s winners). The PSAT is essentially a slightly shorter version of the popular SAT college admissions test. (Note that the PSAT is changing in 2023 to an all digital format that will be the same length as the new, digital SAT).
The Semifinalist cutoff score in Texas was a 219 for the 2023-2024 National Merit Scholarship competition, which is the same as it was in the previous year. This cutoff score means that students had to have a selection index score of at least a 219 out of 228, which is roughly equivalent to a 1490 on the full SAT.
To earn the less prestigious but still admirable “Commended” designation, students must have earned a selection index score of 207 or roughly a 1380 on the SAT, which places them approximately in the top 5% of PSAT takers nationwide.
The number and percentage of awardees is one of the only statistics that is cross-comparable between private and public high schools. Since the national average is just 1%, any school that boasts more than 1% of their senior class as National Merit Semifinalists is graduating smarter students than average.
Houston’s Top High Schools by National Merit Semifinalists
St. John’s School in River Oaks continues to be the metro area’s talent magnet. With 27 Semifinalists, 15 percent of the senior class qualified as being in the top 1% or 15x the national average. However, this year’s result was slightly down compared to last year’s 32 Semifinalists.
Kinkaid School similarly maintains its position as the second most academically rigorous school in the city. The Memorial-area Houston school celebrated 14 Semifinalists or 9% of their senior class.
The John Cooper School in The Woodlands had a really phenomenal year with 9 Semifinalists, up from just 1 last year, placing them third in the region with 8% of the senior class.
Houston ISD’s (HISD) Carnegie Vanguard High School retains its spot ahead of any other public school in the Houston metro area. Their 15 Semifinalists represent about 7% of the senior class, or 7x the national average and is a nice improvement over last year’s 12 awardees.
Other big sources of talent can be found in public and private schools like Seven Lakes, Clements, Awty International, Dulles, DeBakey, Woodlands College Park, Memorial, Bellaire, Strake Jesuit, St. Agnes, and Clear Lake, where between 3 and 5 percent of their senior classes scoring in the top 1% on the PSAT.
Katy and Sugarland Have Great Schools
Katy’s 85 National Merit Semifinalists represent 18% of the Houston area’s total.
Sugarland’s 71 National Merit Semifinalists represent 15% of the Houston area’s total.
At the statewide level, public boarding school Texas Academy for Math and Science (TAMS), 32 seniors were National Merit Semifinalists—about 15% of the class.
Key Takeaways From the 2023-2024 Semifinalists Announcement
- St. John’s and Kinkaid continue to be the smartest schools in the Houston area.
- HISD’s Carnegie Vanguard is the top public school.
- The Katy and Sugarland suburban school districts are truly exceptional.
Top College Majors for Smart Students
The most popular college majors of interest for Houston’s brightest high school graduates remains computer science, engineering, and bioscience. Computer science saw a big jump in popularity at the expense of Bioscience and Health Professions. However, nearly none of these brilliant students seems very interested in government or law.
(A student’s intended major is designated by the three digit code in front of their name in the table below. Click here for the full description of these college majors.)
- Computer Science (code 30x) – 15% of Houston’s Semifinalists (up from 9% last year)
- Engineering (45x) – 9%
- Bioscience (16x) – 7%
- Health Professions (6xx) – 4% (down from last year’s 7%)
- Undecided (999 or 0000) – 49%
National Merit Scholarships Can Mean Free College
In a typical year, about half of all high school juniors across more than 20,000 US high schools participate in the National Merit Scholarship competition beginning the fall of their 11th grade year. Juniors compete by sitting for what is essentially an abbreviated, practice SAT (PSAT).
Semifinalists, the most important designation, represent the top 1% of the approximate 1.3 million test-takers. National Merit Semifinalists generally qualify for scholarships that can range from full tuition at certain public colleges to $5,000 and $10,000 scholarships at prestigious, private universities.
Texas colleges offering full-rides include the University of Houston, UT Arlington, UT Dallas, UT Tyler, UNT Dallas, Abilene Christian, and Lubbock Christian. Even competitive Texas A&M at College Station offers a near free ride.
Approximately 15,000 out of 16,000 semifinalists then go on to be designated finalists. Finalists are typically chosen in accordance with their school grades and ACT or SAT test scores.
Lastly, a little over half of the finalists are designated “Merit-Scholarship” recipients, meaning that they get the fancy title and one-time $2,500 cash payment. Scholarship winners are selected “based on their abilities, skills, and accomplishments.”
These NMSF figures are particularly attractive, versus SAT and ACT scores, because they’re publicly available from the National Merit Scholarship Corporation; conversely, schools do not have to disclose the SAT and ACT scores of their students. And when private schools do disclose SAT/ACT scores, it’s often presented in a way that’s difficult to read and/or compare.
Names of National Merit Semifinalists
This list includes students from schools in Baytown, Bellaire, Conroe, Cypress, Friendswood, Fulshear, Houston, Humble, Katy, Kingwood, Klein, League City, Pearland, Missouri City, Richmond, Spring, Stafford, Sugar Land, The Woodlands, Tomball, and the Texas Academy for Math and Science at Denton. The table’s default sorting is by school.
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This article was last updated on September 14, 2023
