Thirty-nine CFISD students have been confirmed as semifinalists in the 55th annual National Merit Scholarship Program. The finalists will be honored at a National Merit recognition program at the Berry Center on Monday, Jan. 11, 2009—along with Commended, National Hispanic and National Achievement scholars.

National Merit semifinalists from Cy-Fair High School are: Andrew Atwood, Colleen Franklin, Bhargav Hiremagalore, Audrey Lee, Benjamin Lefler and William Whitham.

National Merit semifinalists from Cypress Creek High School are:
Alejandro Azocar, Daniel Bankus, Kristen Flint, Taylor Jellison, Zachary Leonard, Mitchell Ludden and Frank Weise III.

National Merit semifinalists from Cypress Falls High School are: Angela Li and Jasneet Singh.

National Merit semifinalists from Cypress Woods High School are:
Samantha Katsounas, Sairam Krishnan, Eric Kuxhausen, Katherine Nguyen, Kidong Park, Sadia Quddus, Seth Richter, Kylee Stouder, Eric Sun, Derek Whitmire and Yue Wu.

National Merit semifinalists from Jersey Village High School are: Steven Fly Jr., Elizabeth Kilson, Nathan Park and Cybil Zhang.

National Merit semifinalists from Langham Creek High School are: Zal Bhathena, Mark Colby, Dalton Dinderman, Travis Heine, Zachary Meyer, George Rixey, Kenneth Sheedlo and Nicole Tran.

NATIONAL MERIT SCHOLARSHIP PROGRAM

The 39 semifinalists, of the 15,000 throughout the U.S. selected by officials of the National Merit Scholarship Corporation, now have the opportunity to win one of approximately 8,200 Merit Scholarship awards. Semifinalists placed among the top 1 percent and Commended Students placed among the top 3 percent of about 1.4 million students who entered the Merit Program by taking the Preliminary SAT/National Merit Scholarship Qualifying Test (PSAT/NMSQT) during their junior year. CFISD had 89 total Commended Students.

Cy-Fair High School’s Commended Students are Matthew Blanchard, Hannah Boyer, Emily Cummings, Braden Dauzat, Jocelyn Egner, Steven Forde, Amber Forness, Madhumita Govindu, Logan Leal, Timothy McShane, Emily Neville, Koryn Pitts, Cameron Snow and Renke Yang.

Cypress Creek High School’s Commended Students are: Avery Addison, Andrew Armour, Eric Chin, Parker George, Alan Greenwade, Kimberly Guyton, Emily Harvey, Hannah James, Jeffrey Miller, Patrick Noe, Nathan Petryk, Richard Renteria, Andrew Sharp, Joseph Sheehan, Jameson Stamps, Kirby Williams and Zhimeng Zhang.

Cypress Falls High School’s Commended Student is: Gregory Cook.

Cypress Ridge High School’s Commended Student is: Max Mercer.

Cypress Springs High School’s Commended Students are: Elyse Coleman, Brett Davis, Ariana Kalziqi and Jesse Lozano.

Cypress Woods High School’s Commended Students are: Sara Allen, Batool Banker, Hannah Barina, Garrett Barker, Timothy Barnhill, Courtney Billingsley, Jay Bowling, Laura Brackney, Connor Brannigan, Jordan Buckley, David Bullock, Matthew Donnellan, Logan Fleming, Nicholas Goodman, Savannah Gosnell, Parker Huber, Cameron Law, Minh Le, Haley Lindsay, Taylor Lopez, Sophia Nguyen, Stephen Quintero, Elizabeth Roensch, Peter Sanchez, Andrew Smith, Michael Stewart, Travis Strahan, Ashley Therriault, George Walden II and Curtis Wendel.

Jersey Village High School’s Commended Students are: Chia-Ye Chu, Cristian Dominguez, John Erford, Rebecca Fitzgerald, Garrett Granier, Dylan Koehn, Daniel La Cook, Philip Lin, Timothy Mardis, Charles Moore, Alison Moscoso, Monica Neugebauer and Ruoyi Pu.

Langham Creek High School’s Commended Students are: Rebecca Boylan, Jude Gonsalves, Hannah Leahy, Jerry Lin, Olivia Low, Cameron Mousighi, Mason Redmond, George Shaughnessy, Lewis Sherer II, Alexander Wang and James Zimmerman.

The National Hispanic Recognition Program

The National Hispanic Recognition Program provides national recognof the exceptional academic achievements of Hispanic high school seniors and identifies them for postsecondary institutions. Twenty-seven Hispanic Scholars and five honorable mention selections have been recognized as Scholars by the College Board’s National Recognition Program.

They are among a select group of 3,300 of the highest scoring students from a nationwide total of 124,000 high school juniors who took the PSAT/NMSQT and designated themselves as Hispanic.

From Cy-Fair High School, Louis Carnicle, Kailie Flores, Logan Leal and Benigno Zavala were named Hispanic Scholars and Daniel Lopez was named Honorable Mention.

From Cypress Creek High School, Alejandro Azocar, Melanie Guzman and Richard Renteria were named Hispanic Scholars.

From Cypress Falls High School, Christia Fernandez and Hector Martinez were named Hispanic Scholars.

From Cypress Ridge High School, Victoria Delgado was named a Hispanic Scholar and Stefanie Cruz was named Honorable Mention.

From Cypress Woods High School, Andreina Castejon, Ryan Gonzales, Andrew Hall, Victoria Hernandez, Taylor Lopez, Kevin Morales, Gabriel Pineda and Kimberly Schwaeble were named Hispanic Scholars and Colton Lyons, Stephen Quintero and Leo Romo were named Honorable Mention.

From Jersey Village High School, Cristian Dominguez, Jesus Esparza Jr., Alison Moscoso and Melissa Tovarez were named Hispanic Scholars.

From Langham Creek High School, Brock Burdyl, Jude Gonsalves, Adriana Jenings, Amanda Mercado, Erin Peraza and Andrew Reyna were named Hispanic Scholars.

NATIONAL ACHIEVEMENT SCHOLARSHIP PROGRAM

The National Achievement Scholarship Program is an academic competition established in 1964 to provide recognition for outstanding Black American high school students. Black students may enter both theNational Achievement Program and the National Merit Program by taking the Preliminary SAT/National Merit Scholarship Qualifying Test (PSAT/NMSQT) and meeting other published requirements for participation. The two annual programs are conducted concurrently but operated and funded separately. Of the more than 130,000 students who currently enter the National Achievement Program each year, approximately 4,600 are honored. A group of about 3,000 are referred to colleges for their potential for academic success. A smaller group of about 1,600 are named Semifinalists.

Four CFISD students were named National Achievement Scholars, while nine students were referred to colleges by National Achievement.

The National Achievement honorees referred to colleges from Cy-Fair High School are Myles Johnson, Cheyenne Matthews-Hoffman and Chinenye Ogwumike.

The National Achievement Commended honorees referred to colleges from Cypress Creek High School are Ashley Barnes, Shoshauna Harrison, Brian Helaire and Sean Simmons.

The National Achievement honorees referred to colleges from Cypress Springs are Kim Coy and Kristyn Joyce.

The National Achievement finalists from Cypress Woods High School are David Bullock and Michael Stewart.

The National Achievement finalist from Jersey Village High School is Christopher Charles. The honoree referred to colleges is Cameron Sweet.