Eagan Students Named National Merit Semifinalists

A dozen students have been named top students through the National Merit Scholarship Program, according to a news release from the Rosemount-Apple Valley-Eagan public school district.

Four students have been named as semifinalists in this year's National Merit Scholarship Program, which means they rank in the top 1 percent of high school seniors across the country who can compete for merit scholarships to be awarded in spring of 2012. The semifinalists are selected based on how well they do in a test called the Preliminary Scholastic Aptitude Test/National Merit Scholarship Qualifying Test, a test students take as juniors. According to a news release from the school district, 1.5 million students across the country took that test last year.

So who are these top students in Eagan? They are Alexander Anderson, Nathaniel Bonshire, William Thomas and Carl Winge of . In total, 16 students in the district won the honor.

District 196 also had 36 students who were named as National Merit commended students, which means they rank in the top 5 percent of students nationwide after taking the Preliminary Scholastic Aptitude Test/National Merit Scholarship Qualifying Test, according to a news release. Eight of them were from Eagan High School.

Those students are Elizabeth Ching, Grant Ebeling, Alexa Golemo, Nicholas Hassett, Greta Helmueller, Morgan Kuehn, Emma Schnuckle and Paul Van Vliet.