Lake Washington School District (LWSD) has 40 high school seniors who have been named semifinalists in the 61st annual National Merit Scholarship Program. Seven are from Kirkland. The National Merit Scholarship Corporation announced the list of semifinalists on Sept. 9.

Redmond High School and Tesla STEM High School each had 15 semifinalists. International Community School had seven semifinalists. Three are from Lake Washington High School.

Sixteen thousand academically talented high school seniors nationwide qualified. About 90 percent of semifinalists advance to the Finalist level. More than half of the finalists will win a National Merit Scholarship, earning the Merit Scholar title. These students will have the opportunity to continue in the competition for 7,400 National Merit Scholarships, worth more than $32 million.

Students qualified for these awards by completing the 2014 Preliminary SAT/National Merit Scholarship Qualifying Test. The nationwide pool of semifinalists includes the highest scoring students in each state. The semifinalists represent less than one percent of U.S. high school seniors.

International Community School: Ryan Chae.

Lake Washington High School: Sarah Chen and Jonah Joughin.

Tesla STEM High School: Kevin Nakahara, Miranda Pehrson, Jacob Rumpf and Sophia Tevosyan.