Seniors Ibuki Iwasaki and Luigia Than have qualified as semifinalists in the 63rd annual National Merit Scholarship Program.

The students, who have shown outstanding academic talent, are among 16,000 high school students nationwide who were awarded the distinction by the National Merit Scholarship Corporation. They represent the top 1 percent of students from across the country with the highest scores on the qualifying Preliminary SAT/National Merit Scholarship Qualifying Test.

These academically talented students took the qualifying test in 2016 along with approximately 1.6 million other juniors from across the country. They are now in the running for scholarships worth more than $32 million.

Both young ladies are accomplished and well-rounded students. Than plays cello, Iwasaki plays violin – and each are proud of the scientific research experiences they took part in over the summer. Than learned coding as part of her work at the Garcia Center for Polymers at Stony Brook University and Iwasaki analyzed data on cosmic rays at Brookhaven National Laboratory.

An additional four seniors from the high school were recognized by the NMSC as Commended Students for their performance on the qualifying test and their exceptional academic promise. They are Eli Doyle, Matthew Pitko, Joseph Samara and Michael Smith.

National Merit Scholarship winners will be announced in the spring of 2018.