Seventeen Bay Area students have been selected as semifinalists for the prestigious U.S. Presidential Scholars Program, one of the country’s highest honors for graduating high school seniors.

Established in 1964, the awards recognize students who demonstrate exceptional talent in the visual, creative and performing arts, along with those excelling in the “career and technical education” fields, which focuses on industry-specific training for a student’s future job. Students were selected based on their academic achievement, including scores on the SAT or ACT exams, talent in their respective areas of interest, and more.

Nearly 3.6 million high school seniors around the country applied for the award, a pool that was then cut to 5,000 candidates. The 17 Bay Area students are part of just 628 throughout the nation to have made it to the semifinalist round.

These students will now move to the next phase of the competition, where up to 161 students will be awarded a U.S. Presidential Scholar medallion in June.

The list of Bay Area U.S. Presidential Scholar semifinalists are listed below.

Alhambra

Ulysses Hill, Cathedral High School

Berkeley

Gavin Trotmore, Berkeley High School

Castro Valley

Zoe Dorado, Castro Valley High School

Hillsborough

Caroline Vichot, Crystal Springs Uplands School

Menlo Park

Alexander Parikh-Briggs, Menlo Atherton High School

Morgan Hill

Aaron H. Tran, Ann Sobrato High School

Palo Alto

Kaylee Wong, Henry M. Gunn High School

San Francisco

Jack C. Quach, St. Ignatius College Prep

San Jose

Annmaria K. Antony, Harker School

Michelle Qiao, Leland High School

Mike Nguyen, The King’s Academy

Miranda Lu, Leland High School

Ritali Jain, Evergreen Valley High School

Santa Clara

Shreyan Mitra, Adrian C Wilcox High School

Saratoga

Joel Kim, Saratoga High School

Sunnyvale

Sezen Musa, Adrian C Wilcox High School

Walnut Creek

Elane Kim, Stanford Univ EPGY Online High School