FORT BEND ISD (September 10, 2025) – A total of 91 Fort Bend ISD high school seniors are semifinalists in the 2026 National Merit® Scholarship Program.

FBISD students are among 16,000 semifinalists in the 71st annual National Merit Scholarship Program. These academically talented students have an opportunity to continue in the competition and win one of three types of scholarships worth nearly $26 million combined. The awards will be announced April through July 2026.

Merit scholars are students who score in the top one percent in the nation on their college entrance exams. They are selected based on their skills, accomplishments and potential for success in rigorous college studies.

Fort Bend ISD’s 2026 National Merit Scholarship semifinalists are:

Austin High School

• Caleb D. Chu
• Tanisha P. Desai
• Ejonamen G. Iyoriobhe
• Sai Vaibhav Koka
• Kevin Li
• Carter H. Nguyen
• Aaditya Puttagunta
• Anvay A. Raichurkar
• Viraj Sheel
• Harrison A. Zhou

Clements High School

• Zara H. Abbasi
• Arisha Amreen
• Sonali Z. Aras
• Raani N. Dharamcy
• Ryotaro O. Ekhaese
• Alexander P. Fernandez
• Joy R. Fong
• Ricky Huang
• Sahil S. Kulkarni
• Thanh Phu Le
• Amanda L. Li
• Hannah B. Li
• Mia Z. Li
• Benjamin Y. Lin
• Sophia Liu
• Piya A. Mehta
• Tarun Muruganandham
• Vedha Narayan
• Kashvi Nitin
• Janki H. Patel
• Sophia X. Qi
• Ethan Romero Leal
• Arsh K. Shah
• Zachary D. Tran
• Joshua J. Varghese
• Bryan J. Wang
• Hannah Wang
• Chloe Weng
• Dorian Wu
• Ethan Xiao
• Henry H. Xu
• Jessica V. Xu
• Joshua C. Yuan
• Hannah M. Zhang
• Wufan Zhang
• Yale M. Zhang
• Cody Zhou
• Harrison L. Zhu
• Geoffrey T. Zuo

Crawford High School

• Vince C. Jose

Dulles High School

• Abhishek S. Aswal
• Akhil Chamarti
• Mahith S. Gottipati
• Kyle Y. Hsieh
• Janel W. Lau
• Kate L. Lee
• Henry H. Lin
• Kester I. MacGregor
• Aden Mathias
• Annika Mondal
• Joshua A. Nathan
• Aditya K. Puppala
• Aanya A. Singh
• Tavishi Sinha
• Meenakshi Sivanandam
• Tanvi Sodhi
• Logan R. Udengaard
• Sahiti K. Venigalla
• Trisha K. Vudata
• Benjamin C. Wang
• Ariana P. Xia
• Jonah J. Zhang
• Kevin Y. Zhang
• Emily Zheng

Elkins High School

• Chiemezie E. Akparu
• Rajeev Bhora
• Sandhya I. Chandrasekhar
• Adithi A. Gorisipati
• Alexis J. Lin
• Paarth Mathur
• Srinivasan L. Muthu
• Kenneth T. Nguyen
• Dhruti Pathak
• Robert G. Zhang

Kempner High School

• Liam C. Lazaro
• Daniel T. Nguyen

Ridge Point High School

• Wilson A. Eagar
• Elizabeth A. Murray

Travis High School

• Jason I. Bogath
• Shreya Mehta
• Parisha Verma

Steps in the 2026 Competition  

High school juniors entered the 2026 National Merit Scholarship Program by taking the 2024 Preliminary SAT/National Merit Scholarship Qualifying Test (PSAT/NMSQT®), which served as an initial screen of program entrants.

To become a finalist, the 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.  

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