High school seniors named National Merit semifinalists High school seniors named National Merit semifinalists (November 17, 2004)

** They will compete for scholarships totaling $33.9 million.

Local seniors, who scored among the highest across the country on a preliminary SAT qualifying test, are semifinalists in the annual National Merit Scholarship Program.

They are eligible to compete for 8,200 Merit Scholarships worth a total of $33.9 million. Winners will be announced in April.

Less than 1 percent of each state's high school seniors were designated semifinalists, and they represent the highest scoring students in each state, said organizers of the 50th annual scholarship competition.

The 16,000 semifinalists nationwide were selected from 1.3 million high school juniors who took the qualifying test in the fall of 2003.

Semifinalists, listed by high school, are:

** Menlo-Atherton: Julia S. Choe, Collin M. Cronkhite-Ratcliff, Andrew R. Lockhart, Kaitlin Molloy, Jack A. Reis, Allison K. Sommer, and Spencer A. Strub.

** Menlo School: Nelson Chen, Tim Fall, Lee Holtzman, Justine Lai, Lisa Miracchi Thomas Niemasik, Somerset Perry, and Aaron Rosekind.

** Sacred Heart Preparatory: Katie T. Carroll, Catherine S. Chuter, Alison N. Dorsey, Stephan T. Goupille, Kristen A. Harmon, Katharine E. Kalkstein, Tenley Mochizuki, Susan E. Nourse, Erin L. Reynolds, Eric D. Rhine, Kelsey F. Stallings, and Nicole E. Villeneuve.

** Woodside Priory: Benjamin Archer, Thomas Flint, Timothy Kovachy, Jesse Lampert, Kyle McAuley, Francys Scott, and Daniel Wenger.

** Crystal Springs Uplands: Pokey Rule of Woodside is among the school's 13 semifinalists.

To advance to the finalist round, semifinalists must receive a recommendation from their high school principal, earn SAT scores that confirm their earlier qualifying test performance, and submit a detailed scholarship application.

The Merit Scholarships are broken into three groups: 2,500 National Merit Scholarships, worth $2,500; a total of 1,100 scholarships, underwritten by corporations and business organizations; another 4,600 scholarships, sponsored by colleges and universities and awarded to finalists who will attend the sponsoring school.

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