On Sep. 9, 2026, the National Merit Scholarship Corporation (NMSC) announced its 2027 Semifinalists — a little over 16,000 students nationwide, out of roughly 1.2 million juniors who took the 2025 PSAT/NMSQT. Semifinalist status goes to the highest-scoring entrants in each state, with the number per state proportional to that state's share of graduating seniors — less than 1% of U.S. high school seniors make the list at all.
Austin's numbers
NMSC's press release lists Semifinalists by mailing city, and "Austin" alone — spanning Austin ISD, Eanes ISD, several Round Rock and Leander ISD campuses that carry an Austin mailing address, Lake Travis ISD, and a handful of private and charter schools — accounts for 166 Semifinalists across about 20 schools. Two schools are running away from the field:
| School | District | Semifinalists |
|---|---|---|
| Westwood H.S. | Round Rock ISD | 43 |
| LASA (Liberal Arts & Science Academy) | Austin ISD | 42 |
| Westlake H.S. | Eanes ISD | 19 |
| Vandegrift H.S. | Leander ISD | 11 |
| McNeil H.S. | Round Rock ISD | 10 |
| St. Stephen's Episcopal School | Private | 10 |
| St. Dominic Savio Catholic H.S. | Private | 6 |
| Lake Travis H.S. | Lake Travis ISD | 4 |
Westwood High School leads with 43 Semifinalists, with LASA just one behind at 42 — both far ahead of #3 Westlake (19). After that it's a steep drop-off to Vandegrift (11) and a tie between McNeil and St. Stephen's Episcopal (10 each).
NMSC's own release includes this caution, and it applies just as much here: "Using numbers of Semifinalists to compare high schools, educational systems, or states will result in erroneous conclusions. The National Merit Scholarship Program honors individual students who show exceptional academic ability and potential for success in rigorous college studies. The program does not measure the quality or effectiveness of education within a school, system, or state." A school with fewer Semifinalists isn't a worse school — enrollment size, demographics, and how many juniors sit for the PSAT all move this number independent of program quality.
What ISD actually gets the credit?
Here's the part that matters if you're house-hunting by school district rather than by city name: several of the highest-scoring "Austin" schools aren't Austin ISD at all. Westwood and McNeil are Round Rock ISD. Vandegrift is Leander ISD. Once you regroup by the district a home is actually zoned to, the picture shifts:
| District | Contributing schools | Semifinalists |
|---|---|---|
| Round Rock ISD | Westwood, Round Rock, McNeil, Cedar Ridge, Stony Point | 79 |
| Austin ISD | LASA, Anderson, McCallum, Austin, Ann Richards | 47 |
| Leander ISD | Rouse, Vandegrift, Leander, Vista Ridge, Cedar Park, Glenn | 35 |
| Eanes ISD | Westlake | 19 |
Combine Westwood, McNeil, Round Rock H.S., Cedar Ridge, and Stony Point, and Round Rock ISD produced 79 Semifinalists this year — more than Austin ISD (47, almost entirely from LASA) and Leander ISD (35, split across six campuses) combined with Eanes ISD's 19. That's a different story than "Austin" as a single mailing-city line item suggests.
Beyond city limits
NMSC also lists Semifinalists under Round Rock, Cedar Park, Leander, Pflugerville, Georgetown, and Dripping Springs as separate mailing cities — schools that are just as much a part of the Austin metro but don't fall under the "Austin" heading at all. Tallied together, those six suburbs add another 66 Semifinalists (Round Rock 28, Leander 19, Cedar Park 9, Pflugerville 5, Dripping Springs 3, Georgetown 2) — bringing the metro-wide total to 232.
Why this matters if you're buying or selling
"Which school is my kid zoned to" is one of the first questions we get from relocating buyers, and National Merit counts are one of the most commonly Googled shorthand answers — for better or worse, per NMSC's own caution above. If it's a factor in your search, verify the actual attendance zone for a specific address before you fall in love with a listing: ISD and campus boundaries can change block to block, especially in the Round Rock/Austin/Leander overlap near Anderson Mill, Four Points, and the Domain. Your agent can pull the exact zoned schools for any address before you write an offer.
Source: National Merit Scholarship Corporation, "Semifinalists in the 2027 National Merit Scholarship Program," press release dated Sep. 9, 2026 (Texas Semifinalist list). Counts above are our tally from that release, grouped by the school's listed mailing city and, where noted, reassigned to the ISD that school is commonly known to belong to; verify district and attendance-zone boundaries independently before relying on them for a purchase decision. This post reports aggregate counts by school and district — not the full roster of named students in NMSC's release.