WEST HARTFORD – Two students at the Hebrew High School of New England (HHNE) have met the requirements to enter the 2016 National Merit Scholarship Program, it was announced recently by Dr. Richard Nabel, head of general studies at HHNE.

Simon Ganeles of West Hartford and David Yashgur of Longmeadow, Mass., both juniors at the West Hartford high school, were among 50,000 students to score highest on the 2014 Preliminary SAT/National Merit Scholarship Qualifying Test, out of a pool of 1.5 million students nationwide who took the test. The two students’ scores placed them each in the top three percent of the test-takers. The students will learn will learn whether they are Semifinalists or Commended Students in September.

In a letter to HHNE, Kimberly C. Greiner, director of Scholarship Administration for the National Merit Scholarship Corporation, called Ganeles and Yashgur “high performers” who “have shown outstanding academic potential.”