Four local students have been named semifinalists by the National Merit Scholarship Corporation:

— Abigail K. Goldfarb, a student at Clayton A. Bouton High School in Voorheesville;

— Hannah C. Lloyd, a Guilderland High School student;

— Ian T. Pradhan,  a Guilderland High School student; and

— Mateen Sharif,  a Guilderland High School student.

They are among 16,000 high school seniors who have an opportunity to continue in the competition for some 7,500 National Merit Scholarships worth about $33 million that will be offered next spring. About 90 percent of the semfinalists are expected to attain finalist standing, and about half of the finalists will win a National Merit Scholarship, earning the Merit Scholar title.

About 1.6 million juniors in more than 22,000 high schools entered the 2017 National Merit Scholarship Program by taking the 2015 Preliminary SAT/National Merit Scholarship Qualifying Test, which served as an initial screen of program entrants. The nationwide pool of semifinalists, representing less than one percent of United States high school seniors, includes the highest- scoring entrants in each state. The number of semifinalists in a state is proportional to the state’s percentage of the national total of graduating seniors.