Sixty Round Rock ISD students were named National Merit Scholarship finalists, following the annual announcement by the National Merit Scholarship Corporation.

Westwood High School, with 35 finalists, led the District in total finalists, earning more than any other school in Texas and among the top five in the United States.

Each year the National Merit Scholarship Corporation selects the highest achieving students for its program. Approximately 15,000 students across the nation were selected as finalists.

“To be named a National Merit Scholarship finalist is reflective of the outstanding work of our students, as well as their parents and teachers,” Superintendent of Schools Dr. Steve Flores said. “We take pride in celebrating the superb work of our students as they strive for excellence in Round Rock ISD and beyond.”

All winners of the National Merit Scholarship award are chosen from the finalist group based on their abilities, skills and accomplishments. A variety of information is available for National Merit Scholarship selectors to evaluate including the finalist’s academic record, information about the school’s curricula and grading system, two sets of test scores, the high school official’s written recommendation, information about the student’s activities and leadership, and the finalist’s own essay according to the National Merit Scholarship Corporation.

Approximately 7,600 National Merit Scholarship awards winners will be announced between March and June, according to the organization.

The following students were named National Merit Scholarship finalists:

Cedar Ridge

  • Nicolas Robert Escobar
  • Sunitha Konatham
  • Matthew Pabst,
  • Arvind Raghavan

McNeil

  • Max H. Bao
  • Matthew L. Golla
  • Amy K. Gravell
  • Larissa Herold
  • Andrew Huynh
  • Samagra Jain
  • Judy G. Li
  • Aanandya Mittal
  • Aditya Sankar
  • Arul Saraf

Round Rock

  • Chase A. Fisher
  • Mikayla T. Kurkjian
  • Jackson R. Powell
  • Logan Smoot
  • Thanvi M. Thodati
  • Anna Van Zile
  • Peyton Wernli
  • Katherine R. Whiteman
  • Cindy Xu

Stony Point

  • Ethan Santoni-Colvin
  • Morgan Santoni-Colvin

Westwood

  • Joel Abraham
  • Cameron Adams
  • Akshay Aggarwal
  • Justin Alpern
  • Alexander Andrews
  • Natalie Bayer
  • Logan Bowan
  • Ethan Brown
  • Divya Choudhury
  • Anne Chow
  • Shreya Dasari
  • Ashley D’Souza
  • Matthew Frizzell
  • Elizabeth Hosmer
  • Austin Huang
  • Macklyn Hutchison
  • Claire Jahnke
  • Matthew Jiang
  • Abhishek Khare
  • Gayeon Kim
  • Min Kim
  • Rohini Kumar
  • Niklas Lauffer
  • Sonali Mitra
  • Saket Myneni
  • Roshni Rawal
  • Jack Scelsi
  • Aditya Tewari
  • Yaswin Veluguleti
  • Angela Wang
  • Nicholas Wong
  • David Xiang
  • Ga In Yeum
  • Grace Yu