8 Seniors At Skokie High Schools Named National Merit Semifinalists

SKOKIE, IL — Eight students from high schools in Skokie advanced to the semifinalist round of the National Merit scholarship program, twice as many as made the cut last year.

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 semifinalists include seven students from Niles Township High School District 219 schools — four from Niles North and three from Niles West — and one from Ida Crown Jewish Academy.

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

• Nathan L. Chung, Niles North High School
• Jack J. Jaminski, Niles North High School
• Anthony C. Mui, Niles West High School
• Jonathan H. Nguyen, Niles West High School
• Levi Polsky, Ida Crown Jewish Academy
• Dev M. Shah, Niles North High School
• Ella G. Sorkin, Niles North High School
• Andrew J. Thompson, Niles West 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 the largest group of scholarship winners is made up of those awarded college-sponsored scholarships. 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.

The number of students from Niles West and Ida Crown in this year's semifinalist round is the same as last year.

But the number of Niles North semifinalists rose from zero in the class of 2023 to four in the class of 2024.

Read more: Four Students At Skokie Schools Named National Merit Semifinalists