Four seniors at TMI – The Episcopal School of Texas were notified last month that they have been named finalists in the annual National Merit Scholarship competition. They are: Megan Abbott, Douglas Carter, Alex Hager and Hamilton Rogers.

Recognized for high scores on the 2010 Preliminary SAT/National Merit Scholarship Qualifying Test, they are among 15,000 high-school seniors nationwide to gain finalist standing in the competition for 8,300 National Merit Scholarships worth a total of more than $34 million.

To advance to this point, semifinalists must maintain an outstanding academic record throughout high school, be recommended by their head of school and earn SAT scores that confirm their earlier performance on the qualifying test.

National Merit scholarship winners will be selected from this group, to be announced later this spring.