(UPDATED: This is the last group of National Merit Scholar winners to be announced in 2018.)

Forty-one Idaho high school seniors are among 7,500 students from across the nation who’ve received a prestigious National Merit scholarship. The National Merit Scholarships are funded by the National Merit Scholarship Corp, U.S. corporations and colleges and universities.

Winners were selected from among 16,000 semifinalists in the 2018 National Merit Scholarship Program. Scholarships are between $500 and $2,500 annually and can be awarded for up to four years of undergraduate study.

Judges considered students’ grades and the difficulty of subjects they studied, scores from two standardized tests; contributions and leadership in school and community activities; an essay and a recommendation. Scholarships were awarded proportional to states’ numbers of graduating seniors.