Four students from The Overlake School were recently recognized as semifinalists in the National Merit Scholarship program.

The students are George Birch, Chris Chen, Sela Dragich and Michelle Lin.

This award is the result of their scoring in the 99 percent on the PSAT test in November 2015. There were more than 1.5 million students who took the PSAT and only 16,000 scores in the 99 percent, which represents less than one percent of all high school seniors across the country.

These students now have the opportunity to compete for scholarships from both colleges and the National Merit Scholarship Corporation. This competition includes the students submitting a detailed scholarship application that includes a written essay, information about their academic record, participation in Overlake school activities as well as community activities, demonstrated leadership abilities, employment and honors and awards received.

In addition to the semifinalists, 12 Overlake students also received letters of commendation in recognition of their high PSAT scores: Betsy Button, Owen Friend, Andrew Knox, Julia Lee, Rebecca Lin, Sam Moran, Christy Oh, Rahul Prasad, Liv Roskill, John Spencer, Adi Sriram and Kiera Sullivan.

National Merit Scholarship winners will be announced this spring.