National Merit semifinalists named

There are eight Kootenai County 12th-grade students who are semifinalists in the 2015 National Merit Scholarship Program.

About 1.4 million juniors in 22,000 high schools entered the program by taking the 2013 Preliminary Scholastic Aptitude Test/National Merit Scholarship Qualifying Test.

The nationwide pool of 16,000 semifinalists represents less than 1 percent of high school seniors and includes the highest-scoring entrants in each state.

The eight local semifinalists are:

Coeur d'Alene Charter Academy - Kenneth McGuire, Adam Odell, Jaeger Zollman

Coeur d'Alene High School - Garret Curtis, Dillon Dunteman

Post Falls home school - Jake Finney

Post Falls High School - Brian Donahue, Samantha Heck

About 90 percent of the semifinalists are expected to attain finalist standing, and more than half of the finalists will win a National Merit Scholarship, earning the Merit Scholar title.

Finalists will receive notification of their designation in February.