Twenty-two Elkins High School seniors earned spots as National Merit semifinalists in the 2026 scholarship program, the Missouri City school announced on its social media account on Friday, Sept. 4.

The 22 Knights account for about a quarter of Fort Bend ISD's 91 semifinalists districtwide. FBISD students were among more than 16,000 semifinalists nationwide in the 71st annual program, according to Fort Bend ISD.

Semifinalists represent less than 1% of U.S. high school seniors. In Texas, 1,673 students qualified, according to Compass Education Group. The state's cutoff Selection Index score rose to 222 out of 228, up from 219 the previous two years, according to General Academic. That score is roughly equivalent to a 1500 or higher on the SAT.

The semifinalist list published by the National Merit Scholarship Corporation confirmed 10 of the Elkins students by name: Chiemezie E. Akparu, Rajeev Bhora, Sandhya I. Chandrasekhar, Adithi A. Gorisipati, Alexis J. Lin, Paarth Mathur, Srinivasan L. Muthu, Kenneth T. Nguyen, Dhruti Pathak and Robert G. Zhang. The remaining 12 names were not available in the published list at the time of publication.

Two of those students have already turned semifinalist status into scholarship money. Rajeev Bhora and Srinivasan L. Muthu each won college-sponsored National Merit Scholarships to Texas A&M University, according to FBISD. Bhora listed medicine as his probable career field. Muthu chose mechanical engineering.

Fort Bend ISD finished the 2026 cycle with 41 total National Merit Scholarship winners across Austin, Clements, Dulles, Elkins, Kempner and Ridge Point high schools. That topped the district's 37 National Merit scholars in 2025, according to FBISD's own reporting.

About 15,000 of the more than 16,000 semifinalists nationwide are expected to advance to finalist standing, with notifications typically arriving in February. Roughly half of those finalists will win one of three scholarship types worth a combined $26 million.

Fort Bend ISD will administer the PSAT/NMSQT to 11th graders on Tuesday, Oct. 27, the qualifying test for the next cycle of National Merit competition.