By Sue Kiesewetter
Enquirer contributor

Thirty-seven Greater Cincinnati seniors are among 3,550 nationally receiving scholarships through the National Merit Scholarship Program, which recognizes the nation's top students.

They were selected from 15,000 finalists and 1.3 million high school students who took the 2002 Preliminary SAT/National Merit Scholarship Qualifying Test as juniors.

All finalists compete for $2,500 National Merit Scholarships. The number of winners in each state is based on its percentage of the national total of graduating seniors.

A selection committee that included college admissions officers and high school counselors reviewed the information submitted by finalists and their schools, evaluating each finalist's academic record, scores from two standardized tests, leadership, essay and a written recommendation.

The winners were judged to have the strongest combination of accomplishments, skills and potential for success.

Students received $2,500 one-time awards from the National Merit Scholarship Corp. or from a private firm. The private awards vary.

On May 26 and July 12, the corporation will name winners of college-sponsored Merit Scholarship awards.

About 8,000 of the 15,000 finalists are expected to receive scholarships.

List of scholarship winners:

Northern Kentucky

Dixie Heights High: Timothy Miller

Holy Cross District High: Paul Schlarman

Butler County

Lakota East: Douglas Brown

Lakota West: Kristal Dobbins (Honorary Merit Scholarship), Shengy Mao (Cognis Corp, Merit Scholarship)

Hamilton County

Cincinnati Country Day: Jason Juang, April Yee

Cincinnati Hills Christian Academy: Jennifer Allen (BP America Inc.)

Indian Hill: Jing Liu, Linsey Rogers (Intl. Paper Merit Scholarship)

McAuley: Katherine Hart, Elizabeth Meng (Northrop Grumman Merit Scholarship)

Moeller: David King, Daniel Schwallie (Tomkins Corp. Foundation), Thomas Lapille

Princeton: Andrew Stephan

St. Xavier High: Joseph Knadler, Robert Hobohm, Gregory Lim, Kyle Karches, Nicholas Wolterman (American Financial Group Merit Scholarship), Francis Bergh (Gannett Foundation/Madelyn P. Jennings Merit Scholarship)

St. Ursula Academy: Katherine Schroer, Emily Broun,

Seven Hills: Megan Hoffmann, Katherine Menzies, Yarl Balachandran, Thomas W. Collins (Aon Corp. Merit Scholarship)

Summit Country Day: Lisa Cosgrove

Sycamore High School: Jacob Lee, Nitin Sekar, Dennis Jiang

Walnut Hills High School: Roaxanne Corkin, Andrew Meiser

Wyoming High School: Elizabeth Kersten, Phillip Roebuck-

Warren County

Kings High: Kera Halbersleben