Five McNeil seniors have been recognized as National Merit Semifinalists out of 71 total students from RRISD. More students from RRISD in general qualified for this distinction compared to 2014, where 54 RRISD students were named semifinalists.

Out of the 1.5 million students who took the PSAT, 16,000 of the highest scoring students qualified as semifinalists.

“After taking the test, I didn’t expect to qualify at all, I thought I did awful,” senior Kathleen Hu said. “So when I got my score, I had to check by calculating my score multiple times. I was very surprised.”

Each year, the National Merit Scholarship Corporation selects the highest achieving students based on their performance on the PSAT that they take in October of their junior year.

The McNeil semifinalists were: Hu, Vijay Nair, Annie Wang, Christine Zhu, Saheel Chodavadia. Furthermore, 16 McNeil students were commended on their performance. These students were invited to an honorary breakfast by the administration on Sept. 25.

“I kind of already knew that I was a National Merit Semifinalist due to traditional cutoffs from the past years, but when I was officially informed about qualifying, I was really shocked,” Zhu said. “I didn’t expect it, I thought there might’ve been some mistake. My parents pushed me to attend some cram events, but I mostly just practiced and timed myself.”

To achieve this national distinction, students typically have to score between 201 and 222 out of 240. Each state has a different cut off to qualify as National Merit Scholarships. For 2015, Texas students had to attain a minimum score 218 to be recognized which means that these students scored in the 99th percentile .

Semifinalists have an opportunity to compete for scholarships and advance to finalists, which will be announced February 2016, by taking an official SAT and submitting a letter of recommendation from their counselors.

Starting from 2016, the format of the SAT will be changed and the current juniors and sophomores will be taking the newer version of the PSAT on Oct. 14. Only juniors can qualify for National Merit Semifinalists and will be notified September 2016.

“I felt really excited and relieved, because I’d been thinking about it after I took the test and I felt nervous since I only studied by doing the practice packet,” Wang said. “Now, I have to go through the process of becoming a finalist, which includes transcripts, essays, everything that goes into any other scholarship.”