The Olentangy students are among roughly 1.5-million high school students across the country who entered the 2010 National Merit Scholarship Program by taking the 2008 Preliminary SAT-National Merit Scholarship Qualifying Test (PSAT-NMSQT).

Of those students, about 50,000 high scorers qualify as either commended students or semifinalists. Semifinalists represent the highest scores on the PSAT-NMSQT.

Olentangy students named 2010 National Merit Scholarship Program Semifinalists are:

• Michael Clark, Olentangy High School (OHS). Clark plans to study biology and eventually do medical research. His top picks for college are Cornell, Ohio State, Miami of Ohio or Denison universities.

• Jakob Hoellerbauer, OHS. He is interested in studying civil, mechanical or electrical engineering, and will decide his field after his first year of college. His top choices for college are Washington University, University of Illinois and Northwestern University.

• Simon Hoellerbauer, OHS. He plans to study history, political science, Russian language and literature or creative writing. His top three college choices are Kenyon College, Swarthmore College and Harvard University.

• Gillian Moore, Olentangy Liberty High School (OLHS). She plans to be a medical doctor. Her top three college choices are Dartmouth, Williams and Middlebury colleges.

• Renee Morris, OHS. She would like to study either linguistics or foreign language education, in Spanish and German. Her college choices include the Ohio State University, Taylor University and Kenyon College.

• Kristen Watts, OHS. She plans to study acting. Her colleges of interest are Carnegie Mellon University and Arcadia University.

In February, the National Merit Scholarship program expects to notify about 90 percent of the 16,000 semifinalists that they advanced to finalist status after fulfilling several requirements, including having a record of a high academic achievement in grades nine through 12 and earning a high score on the SAT.

Students from this group will compete for $2,500 scholarships from the National Merit Scholarship Program, corporate-sponsored scholarships and college-sponsored scholarships. Announcement of scholarship winners will begin in March 2010.