Houston’s National Merit Semifinalists for 2025-2026

Houston’s Graduating Seniors Outperform

The 2025-2026 National Merit Scholarship Competition is another good year for Houston-area high school seniors. There were 583 seniors who scored in the top 1% on the PSAT to earn the celebrated “Semifinalist” designation and will go on to compete for the National Merit Scholarship. Houston’s students are smart. This year’s impressive number of Semifinalists represents about 4% of all Semifinalists nationwide, which is about twice as many as we should have by population. Houston’s best high schools for the Academic Top 1% are St. John’s, Carnegie Vanguard, and Awty International.

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). While essentially the same test, PSAT participation is nearly one-third lower than that for the SAT—approximately 1.3 million students took the PSAT in October 2024 versus 1.97 million students in the class of 2024 who took the SAT. While the state of Texas pays for all students to take either the ACT or SAT, it does not cover the cost of the PSAT.

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 2024 for this year’s winners). This year’s PSAT scores are the second from the new Digital PSAT. The Digital PSAT and Digital SAT format and computer-adaptive style are exactly the same outside of small variations in question difficulty.

Texas is among the 10 most competitive states in the US to qualify as a National Merit Semifinalist. The cutoff score in Texas was a 222 for the 2025-2026 National Merit Scholarship competition, which is up significantly from the 219 it was for the previous two years. This cutoff score means that students had to have a selection index score of at least a 222 out of 228, which is roughly equivalent to a 1500+ on the actual SAT.

To earn the less prestigious but still admirable “Commended” designation, students must have earned a selection index score of 210 (up from 208 last year) or roughly a 1400 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 34 Semifinalists, 19 percent of the senior class qualified as being in the top 1% or 19x the national average.

Houston ISD’s (HISD) Carnegie Vanguard High School retains its spot ahead of any other public school in the Houston metro area. Their 18 Semifinalists represent approximately 10% of the senior class, which is nearly twice as impressive as their district rivals at DeBakey and HSPVA.

Awty International School had an impressive year with 12 Semifinalists or approximately 10% of their senior class, which places it well ahead of Kinkaid.

With between 3% and 7% of their classes named as Semifinalists, Kinkaid, Strake Jesuit, Village, and John Cooper round out the best private schools in the Houston area. The remaining best public schools in the Houston area are Clements (Sugarland), Bellaire, De Bakey (Houston), HSPVA (Houston), Seven Lakes (Katy), and Memorial (Spring Branch).

Superb Suburban Schools in Katy, Sugar Land, and The Woodlands

Only 216 of the Houston-area’s 583 National Merit Semifinalists actually hail from Houston (or Bellaire); the remaining 367—the majority—are from the city’s suburbs, particularly Katy, Sugarland, and The Woodlands.

• Katy’s 90 National Merit Semifinalists represent 15% of the Houston area’s total.
• Sugar Land’s 77 National Merit Semifinalists represent 13% of the Houston area’s total.
• The Woodland’s 42 National Merit Semifinalists represent 7% of The Houston area’s total.

At the statewide level, public boarding school Texas Academy for Math and Science (TAMS), 24 seniors were National Merit Semifinalists—about 15% of the class.

Key Takeaways From the 2025-2026 Semifinalists Announcement

1. St. John’s School is in a league of its own, but Awty International is exceptional too.
2. Houston ISD’s Carnegie Vanguard is the best public school in the greater Houston area.
3. The Katy, Sugarland, and The Woodlands suburban public school districts are exceptional.

Best Texas High Schools by National Merit Semifinalists

Disregarding the size of a school’s senior class, these schools had the most Semifinalists in Texas:

1. Westwood High School (Austin) – 63
2. Coppell High School (Coppell) – 45
3. Seven Lakes High School (Katy) – 44
4. Clements High School (Sugar Land) – 39
5. Liberal Arts and Science Academy High School (Austin) – 39
6. Bellaire High School (Bellaire) – 38
7. Plano West High School (Plano) – 37
8. St. Mark’s School (Dallas) – 35
9. St. John’s School (Houston) – 34
10. Round Rock High School (Round Rock) – 34

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 Texas Tech, University of Houston, 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 Houston’s National Merit Semifinalists

This list includes all National Merit Semifinalists in Texas. Our calculations for the Greater Houston Area include Baytown, Bellaire, Conroe, Cypress, Friendswood, Fulshear, Houston, Humble, Katy, Kingwood, Klein, League City, Missouri City, Pearland, Richmond, Spring, Stafford, Sugar Land, The Woodlands, and Tomball. The table’s default sorting is by city (we’re working to address a technical issue preventing the table from sorting).

This article was last updated on September 11, 2025

Download the full list of Texas National Merit Semifinalists from National Merit Scholarship Corporation