Six Westlake High Students Are National Merit Semifinalists

students Thomas Carroll, Jennifer Chern, Lauren Choban, Kyle Lathem, Caitlin Smith and Kelley Zhou have been announced as 2012 National Merit Semifinalists.

The group is moving on in the competition next spring for about 8,300 National Merit Scholarships worth more than $34 million.

with fourteen students scoring in the top 1 percent of 50,000 test takers who had high scores.

Westlake High Principal Tim Freeman said in comparison to neighboring schools, Westlake students fared well on the test this year.

"We're very, very excited," he said. "It looks like this was a really hard test year."

Semifinalists in the 2012 National Merit Scholarship Program include about 1.5 million juniors from 22,000 high schools across the country. To qualify, students had to take the 2010 PSAT, and less than 1 percent of high school seniors make it to the semifinal round.

To move on to the semifinal round, students have to have a great academic record, get a recommendation from their high school principal and score well on the SAT. They also must write an essay and include information on their extracirricular activities.

About 15,000 students are expected to move on to becoming National Merit Finalists in February.