Seven Lakes High School followed its 2025 national championship with a second-place finish in Division C at the 2026 National Science Olympiad National Tournament, held at the University of Southern California. The district announced the result June 25. Separately, 27 Katy ISD seniors earned college-sponsored National Merit Scholarships, with Seven Lakes accounting for nearly half the winners.
The back-to-back top-two finishes cement Seven Lakes among the country's elite Science Olympiad programs. More than 2,000 students on 120 teams competed at the 42nd annual tournament.
"We are incredibly proud of our students and coaches for representing the District with excellence," Katy ISD Director of GT & Advanced Academics Danielle Sanchez said in the district's June 25 announcement. "Their achievements reflect the strength of our advanced academic programs and their passion for scientific discovery."
Seven Lakes Junior High also made its first-ever national appearance, finishing 13th in Division B after a runner-up result at the Texas state tournament. Jordan High School qualified for nationals as the state runner-up in Division C.
27 seniors land National Merit Scholarships
Katy ISD announced June 10 that 27 seniors across six campuses won college-sponsored National Merit Scholarships, up from 26 the prior year. The scholarships are awarded by the colleges and universities the students plan to attend.
Seven Lakes led all campuses with 13 recipients: Autumn Brown, Emmanuelle Chern, Saumya Dharap, Jarrett Hutto, Rahid Ismail, Maimunah Kausar, Komal Maniar, Terynce Nguyen, An Truong, Rohanna White, Ken Woodward, Erica Zhang and Michelle Zhang.
Tompkins placed six scholars: Ryan Du, Joshua Joiner, Abhinav Kanchupatla, Ryan Lin, Aahana Rao and Faizan Zameer. Taylor had three (Joseph Cooper, Sheryl Surawijaya, Sophia Tang), as did Jordan (Rohan Kishore, Christian Hough, George Rhoades). Katy High's Spencer Gernale and Cinco Ranch's Ivan La round out the list.
Students qualified by taking the PSAT/NMSQT as juniors. Fewer than 1% of the more than 1.3 million entrants nationwide advance to semifinalist standing.
UIL state results add depth
Seven Lakes finished third overall at the 2026 UIL Academic State Meet in Class 6A and won the Social Studies state championship. Team members Matthew Myers, Andy Truong, Rey Georghiou and Adam Brown earned that title. Nayaneshwar Sanampuri won the individual Number Sense state championship, and Sofia Morias and Bianca Salinas captured the Traditional Animation title at the UIL Film Festival for their film "Together or Naught."
That's a lot of hardware.
Tompkins earned third in Computer Science, with team members Nathan Yan, Guhan Gargya, Andrew Yoon and Zoe Xue posting the highest programming score in Texas. Seven Lakes placed 17th in the 2025-26 UIL Lone Star Cup standings for Conference 6A with 65 points.
