More than four dozen east metro students have been named National Merit Scholarship semifinalists.

Approximately 16,000 semifinalists were chosen nationwide from about 1.5 million high school juniors who entered the 2012 competition.

The semifinalists, who represent less than 1 percent of U.S. high school seniors, will now compete for about 8,300 scholarships that will be awarded next spring.

East metro semifinalists are:

Arden Hills: Mounds View High: Ke, John C.; Kim, Samuel H.; Knopf, Elizabeth F.; Lindberg, Ann E.; Mangalick, Keshav K.; Ovshak, Andrew M.; Palmer, Maureen Y.; Qi, Yueyilin; VanTassel, Samuel S.; Wang, Stephanie M.; Wiegert, Tyler M.; Wong, Hanning; Zhao, Alan M.

Lake Elmo: Home school: Senger, Andrew J.

Lindstrom: Chisago Lakes High: Wilcox, Charlie C.

Mahtomedi: Mahtomedi High: Atkins, Alexandra H.; Berger, Beau; Dennison, Rebekah J.; Medved, Alexander D.

Maplewood: Mounds Park Academy: Degregorio, Matthew J.; Gangestad, Greta L.; Gerber, Colton J.; Nicholson, Catherine C.

New Brighton: Irondale High: Corgan, Theodore M.; Johnson, Matthew A.; Kapelke, Ian J.; Walker, Grace E.

North St. Paul: North High: Johnson, Jessica M.

Roseville: Roseville Area High: Charland, Alex F.; DiGiorno, Margaret E.

Spring Lake Park: Spring Lake Park High: Bodor, Katherine M.; Ponto, John T.

St. Paul: Central High: Bachelder, Jill; Brod, Anri A.; Burger, Amelia; Dudman, Alex P.; Feigenbaum, Benjamin R.; Gagne, Nathan W.; Goetz, Jon C.; Loverso, Nicoletta I.; Maxam, Anthony J.; Maxam, Dean J.; Nesser, Hannah O.; Park, Do-Hyoung; Peterson, Matthew J.; Shank, Ian; Sherman, Alexander M.; Timmons, Max H.

Como Park High: Shaff, Dean C.

Cretin-Derham Hall: Christians, Noah

Great River School: Gottlieb, Rose H.

Highland Park High: Bjork, Erin O.; Kranz, Bridget J.

Home school: Gallagher, Adam

St. Paul Academy and Summit School: Kinney, Rachel E.; Knutzen, Kristin E.; Porter, Daniel H.; Xie, Edward

Stillwater: Stillwater Area High: Landsem, Rachel M.; Wilkinson, Maxwell S.

White Bear Lake: White Bear Lake Area High: Buhl, Justin R.

Woodbury: East Ridge High: Yonkoski, Lauren E.; Yun, Jiatao

Woodbury High: Cooper, Elizabeth J.; Grupe, Alexandra F.; Li, Sheri Y.; Liu, Yang; Ostergaard, Jason P.