URBANA — Fourteen Uni High seniors have just been announced as semifinalists in the 2010 National Merit Scholarship program. These students represent about 23 percent of the 62-member senior class. This is one of the top academic distinctions for a high school student.

This year’s semifinalists are:

• Lisa Boyce
• Tej Chajed
• Daniel Cheng
• Amy Ding
• Laura Dripps
• Chumin Gao
• Danny Ge
• Isaure Hostetter
• Diana Liu
• Jasper Maniates-Selvin
• Kelly Mover
• Daniel Pearlstein
• Neil Pearson
• Vivian Robison

“That is absolutely outstanding,” said Director Jeff Walkington. “That is probably my favorite honor that a student can win. I think it is extremely impressive, and it's one that I have always kind of judged as a barometer of how strong the school is.”

Uni has a history of having a large number of semifinalists. The Class of 2009 had 20 semifinalists (35 percent of the seniors). The Class of 2008 had 15 semifinalists (23 percent).

This year, Uni is tied for 11th place in Illinois for having the most semifinalists. But the school has the second-largest percentage of semifinalists in relation to its enrollment: 5.7 percent for Uni compared to 6.6 percent for the Illinois Mathematics and Science Academy and 4.2 percent for University of Chicago Laboratory.

A total of 158 Illinois schools had at least one semifinalist this year. Uni was the only school in Champaign-Urbana with semifinalists. In the larger East Central Illinois area, Mahomet-Seymour, St. Joseph-Ogden, and Tuscola each had one semifinalist.

Illinois Schools With Largest Number of Semifinalists

1. Illinois Mathematics and Science Academy: 43 semifinalists (enrollment: 650, grades 10-12) *
2. Winnetka New Trier: 31 (4,151)
3. Lincolnshire Stevenson: 27 (4,497)
4. Hinsdale Central: 24 (2,686)
5. University of Chicago Laboratory: 21 (498)
6. (tie) Naperville Central: 19 (3,036)
6. (tie) Oak Park-River Forest: 19 (3,163)
8. Naperville North: 18 (3,137)
9. Naperville Neuqua Valley: 17 (4,432)
10. Deerfield: 15 (1,730)
11. (tie) UNI HIGH: 14 (245)
11. (tie) Palatine Fremd: 14 (2,927)
11. (tie) Lake Forest: 14 (1,768)
11. (tie) Chicago Whitney Young Magnet: 14 (2,028)

* All enrollment figures are from the Illinois High School Association's 2009-10 directory. The enrollment for IMSA has been corrected; it should be 650 instead of the 850 reported in the IHSA directory.

Students are eligible for National Merit honors by taking the Preliminary SAT/National Merit Scholarship Qualifying Test in the fall of their junior year. Last year about 1.5 million juniors from 22,000 high schools took the PSAT/NMSQT.

Only the top 16,000 students are given the honor of becoming semifinalists. These students will then have a chance to further compete to become full-fledged National Merit Scholars later this year.

About 90 percent of semifinalists go on to become finalists, according to the National Merit Scholarship Corporation. About half of the finalists will win a National Merit Scholarship. Some 8,200 National Merit Scholarships totaling $36 million will be offered.