Organizers of the National Merit Scholarship program have announced this year’s finalists, and 12 of the students are from the Shawnee Mission School District.

Approximately 1.6 million students take the Preliminary SAT/National Merit Scholarship Qualifying Test each year. Of those, just 16,000 advance to the semifinalist stage. About 15,000 of the semi-finalists are named finalists.

This year’s Shawnee Mission finalists are:

Shawnee Mission East

• Grant Goode
• Allyson Griffith
• Miranda Hack
• Thomas Joyce
• Sabrina Lin
• Ainsley Rice

Shawnee Mission Northwest

• Megan Goetz
• Noah Gruman
• Mina Rulis

Shawnee Mission South

• Amelia Mullin

Shawnee Mission West

• Amy Qiang
• Nicholas Wallenburg

The winners of the 7,500 Merit Scholarships will be announced starting in March. Each scholarship winner receives $2,500.

Last year, 17 Shawnee Mission students advanced to the finalist round.