The school year might be winding down, but it’s scholarship season, and things are heating up for a few seniors at Columbia’s high schools.

Last week 17 Columbia students were named National Merit Scholarship Finalists. And for that Vox gives them props!

In order to become finalists the students had to have scored a 213 or higher on the preliminary SAT and qualify as semifinalists. From there they were chosen from the pool of semifinalists based on recommendations from their schools, an essay and their actual SAT scores.

Right now only the corporate scholarships have been announced, but by mid-June all of the awards recipients should be announced. Of the 17 Columbian students, only one received a corporate scholarship. Avantika Khatri of Rock Bridge High School was awarded the National Merit Macy’s Inc. Scholarship.

The remaining 16 finalists are:

CHRISTIAN FELLOWSHIP SCHOOL

• Benjamin Taylor

HICKMAN HIGH SCHOOL

• Carter Datz
• Jeanna Hoffman
• Daniel Hwang
• Annemarie Van Doren
• Avery Wagner

ROCK BRIDGE HIGH SCHOOL

• Christian Ackmann
• Riaz Helfer
• Katherine Hobbs
• Elena Horvit
• Amy Scott
• Nicholas Sun
• Methma Udawatta
• Christina Wang
• Walter Wang
• Angela Zhang