URBANA - Twenty Uni High seniors have been recognized as National Merit Commended Students in the 2011 National Merit Scholarship program. These students represent about 32 percent of the 62-member class.

This year's honorees are:

• Albert Anastasio
• Austin Black
• Seth Bull
• Jennifer Cooke
• Emma Coverdill
• John D'Angelo
• Celinda Davis
• Katherine Floess
• Alex Gruebele
• Caroline Kamm
• James Kesan
• Eunjung Kim
• Zach Korol-Gold
• Amrutha Kumaran
• Katy Metcalf
• Allen Miller
• Sol Robinson
• Ziran Shang
• Warren Skoza
• Nancy Tang

In September, 17 members of the senior class, or about 27 percent, were named semifinalists. This means that more than half of the school's seniors earned National Merit honors.

Commended students place in the top 5 percent of more than 1.5 million students who entered the competition by taking the 2010 Preliminary SAT/National Merit Scholarship Qualifying Test.

Out of the 50,000 highest scorers nation-wide on the PSAT/NMSQT, 34,000 are named commended students while the other 16,000 are named semifinalists.

While commended students are no longer in the running for National Merit scholarships, which are only limited to finalists, they are still considered for scholarships given by individual companies.

Last year, the Class of 2010 had 14 semifinalists and 17 commended students.