Five juniors at Lindbergh High School have been named semifinalists in the 55th annual National Merit Scholarship Corp. program.

More than 1.5 million juniors in about 22,000 high schools nationwide entered the program by taking the 2008 Preliminary SAT/National Merit Qualifying Test, which served as an initial screen of program entrants.

Lindbergh’s semifinalists include Audrey Dang, Kathryn Hagerty, Max Fei, Justin Helbert and Byron Coffey.

The nationwide pool of semifinalists represents less than 1 percent of U.S. high school seniors and includes the highest-scoring entrants in each state.

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

The semifinalists also submit a self-descriptive essay and information about their leadership in school and community activities.

Finalists will be announced in the spring.