AUBURN – St. Dominic Regional High School Principal Donald Fournier has announced Kelsey E. Murphy, a senior and daughter of Mr. and Mrs. Michael Murphy of Winthrop, is a semifinalist in the National Merit Scholarship Corp.

More than 1.5 million juniors in over 21,000 high schools entered the 2009 National Merit Program by taking the 2007 Preliminary SAT National Merit Scholarship Qualifying Test, which served as an initial screen of program entrants.

The nationwide pool of semifinalists, which represents less than 1 percent of U.S. high school seniors, includes the highest scoring entrants in each state. The number of semifinalists in a state is proportional to the state’s percentage of the national total of graduating seniors.

To become a finalist, a semifinalist must have an outstanding academic record throughout high school, be endorsed and recommended by the high school principal and earn SAT scores that confirm the student’s earlier performance on the qualifying test.

The semifinalist and a high school official must submit a detailed scholarship application, which includes the student’s self-descriptive essay and information about participation and leadership in school and community activities.

Approximately 15,000 semifinalists are expected to advance to the finalist level.