Interesting demographic glimpse of California National Merit Semifinalists

Paying for College National Merit Aid
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<p>Since CA is the most populous state, I took a peek at the list of NMSF out of curiosity. Some interesting demographic observations for the California Class of 2015:
<a href="http://www.docstoc.com/docs/172418022/2015-National-Merit-Semifinalists-in-California"&gt;http://www.docstoc.com/docs/172418022/2015-National-Merit-Semifinalists-in-California&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p>

<p>Estimated # NMSF nationally: ~15,000</p>

<h1>NMSF in California Class of 2015: **2,126<a href="14%%20of%20total">/b</a></h1>

<p>Most represented last names:
<a href="1/3%20of%20CA%20semifinalists%20had%20one%20of%20these%20last%20names">i</a>*
68 Lee or Li<br>
62 Chen<br>
44 Wang<br>
41 Kim<br>
34 Zhang<br>
30 Liu<br>
25 Huang<br>
24 Wu<br>
19 Lin, Lu, Park<br>
18 Xu<br>
17 Chang, Yang<br>
14 Wong<br>
12 Zhu<br>
11 Nguyen<br>
10 Cheng, Hu, Zhou,<br>
9 Cho, Chung, Ho, Patel(or Patil)<br>
8 Gao, Kuo, Shen, Sun<br>
7 Tran, Yu<br>
6 Agrawal(var. spellings), Cai, Chiang, Chu, Deng, Feng, Guo, Gupta, He, Liao, Lim, Luo, Ma, Peng, Su, Wei, Yuan, Zhao
** 694 SUBTOTAL 33% ** </p>

<p>Last names respresented by at least 3 students, sorted alphabetically:
<a href="%7Ehalf%20of%20CA%20semifinalists%20had%20one%20of%20these%20last%20names">i</a>*
6 Agrawal (var. spellings)<br>
3 Ahn<br>
3 Armstrong<br>
4 Brown<br>
6 Cai<br>
5 Chan<br>
17 Chang<br>
3 Chao<br>
62 Chen<br>
10 Cheng<br>
6 Chiang<br>
4 Chin<br>
4 Chiu<br>
9 Cho<br>
3 Choi<br>
3 Chow<br>
6 Chu<br>
9 Chung<br>
6 Deng<br>
5 Dong<br>
3 Duong<br>
4 Fang<br>
6 Feng<br>
5 Fong<br>
3 Fu<br>
8 Gao<br>
3 Garcia<br>
3 Gu<br>
6 Guo<br>
6 Gupta<br>
4 Han<br>
3 Hao<br>
6 He<br>
9 Ho<br>
5 Hong<br>
3 Hsu<br>
10 Hu<br>
25 Huang<br>
3 Hung<br>
3 Hwang<br>
5 Iyer<br>
3 Jeong<br>
3 Ji<br>
5 Jin<br>
3 Jones<br>
3 Kao<br>
4 Khan<br>
41 Kim<br>
8 Kuo<br>
3 Kwok<br>
3 Lai<br>
5 Lam<br>
68 Lee or Li<br>
4 Leung<br>
5 Liang<br>
6 Liao<br>
6 Lim<br>
19 Lin<br>
3 Ling<br>
30 Liu<br>
4 Lo<br>
19 Lu<br>
6 Luo<br>
6 Ma<br>
4 Mao<br>
3 Meng<br>
3 Ng<br>
11 Nguyen<br>
19 Park<br>
9 Patel or Patil<br>
6 Peng<br>
3 Qian<br>
5 Rao<br>
3 Ravi<br>
4 Reddy<br>
4 Ren<br>
4 Shah<br>
3 Sharma<br>
8 Shen<br>
5 Shi<br>
5 Shin<br>
3 Singh<br>
3 Son<br>
5 Song<br>
6 Su<br>
8 Sun<br>
5 Tan<br>
4 Tang<br>
3 Tong<br>
7 Tran<br>
3 Tsai<br>
3 Tung<br>
44 Wang<br>
6 Wei<br>
3 West<br>
3 Williams<br>
14 Wong<br>
24 Wu<br>
3 Xiao<br>
5 Xie<br>
18 Xu<br>
3 Xue<br>
17 Yang<br>
4 Yee<br>
3 Yeh<br>
4 Yen<br>
3 Yin<br>
3 Yoon<br>
4 Young<br>
7 Yu<br>
6 Yuan<br>
3 Zeng<br>
34 Zhang<br>
6 Zhao<br>
5 Zheng<br>
10 Zhou<br>
12 Zhu<br>
** 947 SUBTOTAL 45% ** </p>

<p>FWIW, there was one “Smith” </p>

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<p>^^^ and only 3 Jones. Wow. Amazing!</p>

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<p>Wow. Not a bit surprised, though.</p>

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<p>Would love to see the TX data (another big sample set). If anyone has a link to the TX list, please lemme know.</p>

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<p>I had noticed the same phenomenon myself. I looked at the list of NMSFs of 3 schools in my area, 2 very large excellent highly ranked public schools and my son’s very small private school and noticed 80% or more were asian names. The interesting analysis is my son’s school which is highly selective with an extremely motivated, high performing group of students from a very high socioeconomic group and very supportive parents and low asian representation; 5 out of 6 NMSFs (total class size is 90) are Asian. </p>

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<p>lol I’m at the top of your list</p>

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<p>@GMTplus7 you might want to check out <a href=“2015 National Merit Semifinalist List Links - #31 by Showingupforlife - National Merit Scholarships - College Confidential Forums”>http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/national-merit-scholarships/1684677-2015-national-merit-semifinalist-list-links-p3.html&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;

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<p>@littlepanda, I have been checking out that thread. But so far no TX list.</p>

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<p>The Massachusetts breakdown: 390 total NMSF for the state</p>

<p>Most represented last names:
8 Lee or Li<br>
7 Chen<br>
4 Wang<br>
3 Jiang, Liu, Xia, Xu, Zhang, Zhou, Sim or Sims<br>
2 Agarwal (var. spelling) Balson, Cao, Cheng, Duckworth, Feinstein, Kim, Murphy, Sun, Tang, Yu, Zhu</p>

<p>64 subtotal = 16%</p>

<p>1 Smith</p>

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<p>Wait, aren’t there 3 Jones, 3 Williams, 3 Garcia, 4 Brown in California? </p>

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<p>There are 5+ pages in the national book…it’s a bit list!</p>

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<p>Congratulations to all of them on a job well done!</p>

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<p>I have yet to see an entire TX list, but here are some interesting observations from the HISD (Houston Independent School District):
<a href=“56 HISD students named National Merit semifinalists - News Blog”>http://blogs.houstonisd.org/news/2014/09/10/56-hisd-students-named-national-merit-semifinalists/&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;

<p>HISD demographic breakdown
211,552 total students
61.9% Hispanic
25.2% African American
3.5% Asian
8.2% White</p>

<p>HISD NMSF: 57
47% Asian names</p>

<p>It is troubling that for a school district that is 62% Hispanic, there is not a single apparently Hispanic name on the list. There is, however, 1 “Smith”.</p>

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I know it’s probably a drop in the bucket but there is a glimmer of hope that the diversity outlook is better than what the list of surnames may show. There are a lot of mixed-race kids in California who have Asian names – know a few people among my extended family who are Asian/Latino and Asian/Black who have Asian surnames. So there may be a few Latinos and Blacks in there who have Asian names.

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@GMTplus7 I’m in TX and would love to see the list. I wonder if you could contact a local news outlet (one that published a subset of the list as a news story). I tried one in Austin, but no response yet. If I get a hold of one. I’ll PM you.

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I’m from Austin and I have never seen a Texas list. From the Austin area, Westwood High School in the Round Rock ISD is the big hitter. There is over 50 NMSF and they do have a list on line with many Asian surnames, also Westlake HS from the Eanes ISD has 28 NMSF with their share of Asians. Austin ISD does not put out a list until the spring.

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I will also say at my D HS, there was 5 NMSF, 1 had an obvious Asian last name, but my D is 25% Asian w/o the last name. The % might be higher.

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But, some of the kids with European-origin last names are also 1/2 Asian. I suspect it balances out.

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BTW, one thing to keep in mind that Chinese and Koreans and Vietnamese have some family names that are shared by a ton of people (there isn’t much diversity in family names). For example, the 4 biggest Chinese surnames account for a quarter of China’s (massive) population. Compare to “Smith”, which is a couple percentages of the English-descent population at most. Roughly half of all Vietnamese are Nguyens. There are more Zhangs in the world than there are French people.

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This thread is one year old. Why did someone dig it up?