Four Ballard-area students, all originally from the same Whittier Elementary School class, are part of the 31 students from Seattle Public Schools to be named semifinalists in the National Merit Scholarships program.

The four high school seniors are Dylan Miller and Olivia Cope from Ballard High School, Jane Singer from Garfield High School, and Madeline Kern from Ingraham High School.

The 31 Seattle students are among 16,000 students nationwide who earned top scores on the 2009 Preliminary SAT/National Merit Scholarship Qualifying Test in the program's 56th year.

Cope, Miller, Singer and Kern have an opportunity to continue in the competition for about 8,200 National Merit Scholarships, worth more than $36 million, that will be offered next spring.

About 90 percent of the semifinalists are expected to attain finalist standing, and about half of the finalists will win a National Merit Scholarship.