Three Woodinville Students Named National Merit Semifinalists

Three Woodinville High School students have qualified as 2013 National Merit Semifinalists, according to the school district.

The students include:

• Dante Chiesa
• Christian Matthews
• Karthik Ramesh

Semifinalists are determined based on 2011 Preliminary SAT/National Merit Scholarship Qualifying Test (PSAT/NMSQT) scores and are designated on a state representational basis.

The nationwide pool of 16,000 semifinalists, which represents less than 1 percent of U.S. high school seniors, includes the highest scoring entrants in each state.

Semifinalists will compete for some 8,300 Merit Scholarships worth more than $32 million that will be awarded next spring. And, roughly 90 percent of the semifinalists will attain finalist standing, and more than half will win the merit scholar title.

To become a finalist, a semifinalist must have an outstanding academic record throughout high school, be endorsed and recommended by the school principal, and earn SAT scores that confirm the student's earlier qualifying test performance.