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The high school seniors now have an opportunity to continue in the competition for some 7,500 National Merit Scholarships worth more than $32 million that will be offered next spring.

About 90 percent of semifinalists are expected to attain finalist standing and about half of those finalists will win National Merit awards, earning the Merit Scholar title.

Local students vying for the title of Merit Scholar are:

• Chloe A. Noll, Chloe T. Patton, Jaclyn Simmons-Rolins, Leila R. Wiberg and Remington W. Wichterman of Basis Oro Valley.
• Travis W. Dobbin of Canyon del Oro High School.
• Anne-Laure Blanche, Ruturaj S. Patil and Kiah C. Sleiman of Basis ÃÛèÖÖ±²¥ North.
• Alan K. Boldt, Mark W. Cai, Hyewon Hong, George Jiang, Emma K. Petersen and Scott H. Wisnom of Catalina Foothills High School.
• Benjamin E. Manninen of The Gregory School.
• Homeschool students Joseph Galasso, Owen D. Lamb and Micaela E. Zachmeier.
• Thomas Gansheimer of Ironwood Ridge High School.
• Luke D. Sorensen of Marana High School.
• Casey N. Norris of Sabino High School.
• Hayden J. Hilkemeyer, Peyton R. Lewis, Samantha A. Marquez and Christopher J. O’Connor of Salpointe Catholic High School.
• Lillian M. Clark, Lee K. Costich, Dylan R. Gardner, Lahiru J. Gunasekara, Ricky Hahn, Andrew W. Harris, Julien A. Hartmann, Celyn T. Jacobs, Luis A. Jimenez, Matthew V. Kimball, Christopher J. Lehman, Samuel J. Merson, Jonathan S. Paul, Olivia N. Pietz, Anupama Sethuraman, Ames C. Stevens and Kimberly P. Vance of University High School.

The students entered the 2018 National Merit Scholarship Program by taking the 2016 Preliminary SAT, which served as an initial screen for program entrants.

The semifinalists include the highest-scoring entrants in each state.