Kristen Siefert of Bainbridge Island has been selected for a National Merit Scholarship.

Siefert has been awarded a college-sponsored scholarship for $2,500 at the University of Southern California. A graduate of Bainbridge High School, Seifert plans on studying biology.

This year’s competition for National Merit Scholarships began when approximately 1.5 million juniors in some 22,000 high schools took the 2010 Preliminary SAT/National Merit

Scholarship Qualifying Test, which served as an initial screen of program entrants. In September 2011, about 16,000 semifinalists were named on a state representational

basis in numbers proportional to each state’s percentage of the national total of graduating high school seniors. Semifinalists were the highest-scoring program entrants in each state and represented less than one percent of the nation’s seniors.

To become a finalist, each semifinalist had to submit a detailed scholarship application, which included writing an essay and describing leadership positions and contributions in school and community activities, showing an outstanding academic record, and being endorsed and recommended by a high school official. Semifinalists also had to take the SAT and earn scores that confirmed their performance on the initial qualifying test.