2 Locals Among National Merit Semifinalists

Two high school seniors from Redondo Union High School will compete for millions in scholarships after being selected as 2012 National Merit Scholarship Program semifinalists.

Seniors Charlotte Kim and Dylan Scarcliff were on the list released Wednesday.

Five students from neighboring Mira Costa High School and more than 30 students from schools on the Palos Verdes Peninsula were selected as semifinalists.

The Redondo Beach semifinalists are in a group of 16,000 students chosen from across the nation. The students will compete for 8,300 National Merit scholarships worth more than $34 million that will be offered next spring.

More than 1.5 million juniors in about 22,000 high schools entered the Scholarship Program by taking the 2010 Preliminary SAT/National Merit Scholarship Qualifying Test. The nationwide pool of semifinalists represents fewer than one percent of U.S. high school seniors.