Nine Kirkland-area high school seniors in the Lake Washington School District (LWSD) have been named semifinalists in the 63rd annual National Merit scholarship program. The National Merit Scholarship Corporation announced the semifinalists on Sept. 13.

Sixteen thousand high school seniors nationwide qualified. About 15,000 semifinalists are expected to advance to the finalist level. More than half will win a National Merit Scholarship. These students will be able to continue in the competition for 7,500 National Merit Scholarships, worth more than $32 million.

Students qualified for these awards by completing the 2016 Preliminary SAT/National Merit scholarship qualifying test. The semifinalists include the highest scoring students in each state. The semifinalists represent less than one percent of U.S. high school seniors.

Here is the list of Kirkland semifinalists.

International Community School

Nour Ayad, Yaniv Schwartz, Michael Sun and Daniel Zhu

Juanita High School

Arthur Liu and Shawdi Mehrvarzan

Lake Washington High School

Samuel Dorsey, Zachary Mickelson and Michelle Um