National Merit Semifinalists Named At Trio Of Lake Forest High Schools

LAKE FOREST, IL — A dozen students from high schools in Lake Forest advanced to the semifinalist round of the National Merit scholarship program, with the same number of scholars as last year making the cut from a trio of local schools.

The local high-scoring seniors announced Wednesday are among the 16,000 students nationwide to be named semifinalists based on the results of the Preliminary SAT tests they took during their junior years.

The National Merit Scholarship Corporation will award nearly $26 million in scholarship money to 6,870 finalists in the spring and summer of 2025.

This year's crop of local semifinalists is evenly divided between local public and private schools. They include six students from Lake Forest High School, five from Lake Forest Academy and one from Woodlands Academy of the Sacred Heart.

Here are this year's semifinalists attending Lake Forest schools, in alphabetical order:

• Anastasia A. Belova, Lake Forest High School
• Ava A. Froberg, Lake Forest Academy
• Victoria Garcia de Leaniz Hernandez, Lake Forest High School
• Albert Jie, Lake Forest High School
• Konstantine S. Kapsalis, Lake Forest High School
• Yiwen Lu, Lake Forest Academy
• Dayla I. Rosen, Lake Forest Academy
• Madison A. Rosen, Lake Forest Academy
• Aarnav D. Shah, Lake Forest Academy
• Elizabeth W. Silvay, Lake Forest High School
• Claire Smylie, Woodlands Academy of the Sacred Heart
• Carolyn C. Stach, Lake Forest High School

The National Merit Scholarship Corporation is an Evanston-based not-for-profit that distributes three types of scholarships every year.

It awards corporate-sponsored scholarships, mostly reserved for the children of people who work for a participating businesses, to about 770 students. Every year, it also awards $2,500 cash to 2,500 students out of its own funds.

But students awarded college-sponsored scholarships comprise the largest group of scholarship winners. About 3,800 students receive anywhere from $500 and $2,000 a year for up to four year of undergraduate study at one of about 150 participating colleges and universities.

To qualify as a finalist and win one of the scholarships, National Merit semifinalists must submit a detailed application, including an essay and recommendation from a high school official.

About 95 percent of semifinalists generally make it to the finalist level, and then nearly half of them are expected to be awarded a scholarship. Each state is allocated a number of semifinalists proportional to its overall population.

Last year, an identical number of students from Lake Forest High School, Lake Forest Academy and Woodlands Academy were named semifinalists.

Four received cash scholarships in May and recent graduates was awarded college-sponsored scholarships to Emory and Vanderbilt universities in June.

Related:

• 12 Students At Lake Forest Schools Named National Merit Semifinalists
• Lake Forest High School, Lake Forest Academy Students Win Scholarships
• National Merit Scholarship Winners Named At Lake Forest Schools