Two Westlake High School students are named National Merit Scholars

Two Westlake High School students, Kathleen Lo and Victoria Lou, both of Thousand Oaks, have been named National Merit Scholars.

Kathleen received the National Merit Boeing Scholarship, and is planning to study medicine. Victoria, who's looking into business, received the National Merit Thomson Inc. Scholarship.

The first group of 2008 National Merit Scholarship winners was announced last week, and by the conclusion of this year's competition, some 8,200 academic champions will have won scholarships worth more than $36 million.

More than 1.4 million juniors in over 21,000 high schools entered the 2008 National Merit Scholarship competition when they took the 2006 Preliminary SAT/National Merit Scholarship Qualifying Test, which served as an initial screen of program entrants. In September 2007, about 16,000 semifinalists were chosen in numbers proportional to each state's percentage of the nation's high school graduating seniors. Semifinalists were the highestscoring program entrants in each state and represented less than 1 percent of a state's seniors.

Semifinalists had to fulfill certain requirements to be named finalists, including a detailed scholarship application, which included an essay describing activities, interests and goals. Other considerations included academic record and school recommendations. About 15,000 students became finalists.

The National Merit Scholarship Program, established in 1955, is a notforprofit organization that operates without government assistance. The majority of National Merit Scholarships offered each year are underwritten by some 500 independent corporate and college sponsors that support NMSC.

- Joann Groff