A dozen high school seniors from Lawrence have been recognized as Commended Students in the National Merit Scholarship program.

The students were recognized for their exceptional academic promise demonstrated by outstanding performance on the Preliminary SAT/National Merit Scholarship Qualifying Test taken during their junior year.

Six of the seniors are from Lawrence High School: Sam Donnell, Steven Glasker, Timothy Hagen, Isaac Lewis-O’Connor, Eric Loux and Katie McClain.

Four seniors are from Free State High School: Ashleigh Armstrong, John Berkowitz, Ruilong Hu and Lauren Rhoades.

Two seniors are from Bishop Seabury Academy: Jennifer Crawford and Christopher Neal.

While they won’t continue in the competition for Merit Awards, they represent the top 5 percent of more than 1.4 million students who entered the competition.

About 34,000 students across the country have been named Commended Students.

The students get a letter of commendation from their school and from the National Merit Scholarship Corp.