Leander ISD Superintendent Bruce Gearing, Ed.D., announced that 41 LISD students are distinguished as Semifinalists in the 2021 National Merit Scholarship Program based on their outstanding performances on the Preliminary SAT/National Merit Scholarship Qualifying Test (PSAT/NMSQT). 

I commend these outstanding students for seizing the opportunity to excel among their peers from across the country,” Superintendent Bruce Gearing, Ed.D., said. “It is a credit to them, their families and their dedicated teachers that they are in such elite company, and I join our LISD community in congratulating them for their achievements.” 

LISD saw a rise in the number of students earning accolades with a 51.8% increase from the previous school year (27 to 41 students).

The National Merit Scholarship Program honors individual students who show exceptional academic ability and potential for success in rigorous college studies. National Merit Semifinalists, who represent less than one percent of U.S. high school seniors, include the highest-scoring entrants in each state. These academically talented high school seniors will compete for scholarships worth more than $30 million that will be offered next spring.

National Merit Semifinalists are as follows:

Cedar Park High School 

Khoi Le 

Christopher Lee

Stella Shipps 

Luke Taylor 

Leander High School 

Karenna Caton 

Kayla Gillen 

Jharna Kamath 

Brandon Nguyen 

Haya Saidi 

Edward Speer 

Glenn High School 

Jada Beauchea 

Rouse High School : 

Joshua Puleski 

Vandegrift High School 

Noel Abitzen 

Arya Anantula 

Akansha Chawla 

Natalee Chu 

Quin Collins 

Patrick Devaney 

Ashira Edelheit-Rice 

Asha Karmakar 

Samuel Kim 

Shreyas Kumar 

Jasper Lee 

Daphne Longmire 

Edward Lu 

Emily Luppino 

Anish Pandya

Devan Patel  

Alexander Pickard 

Claire Rapier

Hunter Ross  

Maci Simmons 

Lekha Sripathi 

Garrett Stevenson 

Samual Weiss 

Eric Yang 

Vista Ridge High School  

Gabriel Smith 

Thomas Wismar