This article was submitted by Livingston Public Schools.

Six Livingston High School seniors have been named National Merit Scholarship Semifinalists and may apply to become National Merit Scholarship Finalists.

The six students were recognized by Livingston High School Principal Mark Stern at a special ceremony last week in the LHS media center. Stern congratulated the students and encouraged the students to apply to become finalists in the program.

The six semifinalists are: Daniel Chi, Arianna Gorkowitz, Zachary Lustbader, Si Ming Shang, Kevin Sun and Jenny Yeung.

The students are among the approximately 16,000 semifinalists nationwide who can apply to become finalists in the competition for the 8,300 National Merit Scholarships, worth more than $34 million to be offered in the spring.

Stern also named 38 commended students in the program, who placed among the top 5 percent of more than 1.5 million students who entered the 2012 competition by taking the Preliminary PSAT/National Merit Scholarship Qualifying Test.

The commended students are: Tiffany Bair, Eeshin Chang, Marcia Chen, Jessica Chu, Ethan Cohen, Ashley Feng, Robert Fidler, Rachel Fuerstman, Liann Giordano, Eliana Glatt, Devin Grossman, Scott Hare, Jeffrey Hong, Marlena Idrobo, Allison Izsak, Eric Kang, Jamie Kim, Benjamin Leff, Scott Levine, Alexandria Li, Brigid McDonald, Aviva Mendelsohn, Sanjay Pamaar, Daniel Segal, Abhi Shah, Ross Shaiman, Xing He Shen, Alan Sun, Jenny Wang, Wanxiuyuan Wang, Patrick Xia, Peter Yao, Anna Yeh, Angela Yu, David Yurman, Jenny Zheng and Yaqian Zhu.

“Our students have worked very hard to reach this achievement,” Stern said. “We are very proud of all their efforts and look forward to seeing all of their successes.”

Director of Guidance Tina Renga said she is proud to recognize Livingston’s students for achieving some of the highest test scores in the country on the PSAT exam.

“We are delighted that our students have this opportunity to participate in the National Merit Scholarship program,” she said, adding she hopes that many of the semifinalists will become finalists later in the school year.