On Sept. 13, Coppell ISD announced 49 National Merit Semifinalists from the class of 2024, 48 students from Coppell High School and one student from New Tech High @ Coppell. 

This number not only broke the previous CHS semifinalist record of 39 students, but also earned the school the highest number of National Merit Semifinalists in Texas for 2023.

Becoming a semifinalist is a rare achievement with only around 16,000 students in a pool of over 1,300,000 students across the country qualifying for the award. The prestigious accomplishment comes with sizable scholarships from several universities that can pay up to full tuition. 

With only a small percentage of students qualifying for the semifinalist status, many students miss out on these valuable opportunities. Therefore, the fact that the school has produced the most national merit scholars in Texas is a remarkable achievement. This could mean big things in the time ahead.

“For the future of our schools, I believe this record number could bring new students and families to CHS and CISD because of this prestige,” CISD Superintendent Dr. Brad Hunt said.

The set of extremely accomplished semifinalists at CHS credit part of their achievement to the motivational school setting they’ve been learning in. 

“CHS has a really good environment for fostering healthy competition,” senior semifinalist Rishi Dasari said. “I feel like I can get better through the help of other people and vice versa.”

Hunt thinks CISD students are taught from the beginning to value their education. 

“In CISD, one of our core values is great teaching and we keep academics as our primary focus,” Hunt said. “From elementary, middle to high school our teachers are focused on academic improvement and achievement.”

But CHS is also well-known by its students for being very academically competitive, and at times, quite pressuring in its classes.

“It’s all about academic excellence here at this school so, I think National Merit wasn’t necessarily the goal but the expectation of excellence,” senior semifinalist Alex Jang said.

Despite the impacts of the studious environment at school, the current senior class of semifinalists remains a remarkable group of students who have spent hours pouring over practice materials, and putting in effort in their classes to earn this achievement. 

“This senior class in particular is very special,” Jang said. “Everyone always complains about competitiveness, but that’s due to everyone’s level of academic rigor being so high. It almost doesn’t surprise me that we have the highest number of semifinalists in Texas.”

These intelligent seniors pursue much more than just their academics outside of school. They continue to represent CISD in their diverse passions and skill sets.

Senior Anveshi Goyal balances her studies while being the DECA District 11 President. Sathvik Adusumilli used his keenness for technology to become a world semifinalist in FIRST Robotics Competition. Senior Nalini Agnihotri’s interests in earth and computer science earned her a spot in aerospace research with NASA. 

And seniors Avani Munji and Sri Achanta use journalism as a creative outlet as executive editors for the student-run newspaper, The Sidekick.

“The list of finalists demonstrates to me not only our commitment to academic excellence, but our focus on the whole child,” Hunt said.  “The seniors who are national merit semi-finalists are well-rounded, highly involved students who represent their school and our district with pride.”