Lucas Corona, a Catholic High School senior, was recently named a National Merit Semifinalist, the school announced this week.

More than 1.5 million juniors in about 21,000 high schools entered the 2020 National Merit Scholarship Program last fall by taking the Preliminary SAT/National Merit Scholarship Qualifying Test.

The nationwide pool of semifinalists, representing less than 1 percent of U.S. high school seniors, includes the highest scoring entrants in each state, acording to the National Merit Scholarship Program.

From the approximately 16,000 semifinalists, about 15,000 are expected to advance to the finalist level. Scholarship winners are notified in the spring.