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Lemont High School senior Kinga Strzalka has been named a National Merit Semifinalist based on her performance in the 2024 Preliminary SAT/National Merit Scholarship Qualifying Test (PSAT/NMSQT). Two other students from Lemont, Nick Persak and Luke Rupert, were recognized as National Merit Commended Students.
The PSAT/NMSQT was taken by more than 1.3 million high school juniors in October 2024. About 16,000 students are selected as National Merit Scholar Semifinalists each year, while roughly 34,000 receive Commended Student status. Of those who become semifinalists, approximately 95 percent advance to finalist standing, and about half of finalists earn a National Merit Scholarship.
The three Lemont High School honorees scored among the top five percent of U.S. students from the Class of 2026 who took the exam last year.
As a semifinalist, Strzalka will continue in the competition for some of the $26 million in National Merit Scholarships to be awarded in Spring 2026. To qualify for these scholarships, semifinalists and their schools must submit detailed applications.
"The nationwide pool of National Merit Semifinalists includes the highest-scoring entrants in each state. The number of National Merit Semifinalists is proportional to the state’s percentage of the national total of graduating seniors. Semifinalists will learn if they become National Merit Scholar Finalists in February 2026."
Lemont High School has previously seen strong representation in this program. The Class of 2016 included a record three semifinalists, while the Class of 2018 had a record total of sixteen honorees recognized as either semifinalists or commended students. In recent years, classes have had between nine and eleven honorees annually.
Past Lemont High School semifinalists include David Ketchum and Bonnie Paris (1992), Andrew Nogal and John Shilkaitis (2001), Monica Pachl-Moran (2003), Jessica DeArcangelis and Michael Fischer (2008), Therese Castrogiovanni and Rita Kuseliauskas (2010), Kim Gannon (2012), Alexandra Albrecht (2013), Diana Vera (2014), Spenser Bailey, Taylor Campos and Misbah Chagpar (2015), Aubrey Molitor and Taylor Shimkus (2019), Molly Thornber and Isabella Wilton (2021), Aashka Trivedi (2022), Maximillian Schuette and Nora Zhou (2023), Leonardo Rafacz and Nora Thornber (2024).
The National Merit Scholarship Corporation is a not-for-profit organization established in 1955 that operates without government assistance. Its scholarships are funded by its own resources along with nearly 300 business organizations and higher education institutions.
Lemont Township High School serves grades nine through twelve with an enrollment of approximately 1,378 students during the 2019-2020 school year according to data from Illinois Report Card. Of these students, grade eleven accounted for about one quarter—the largest share—of enrollment at that time.
Demographically, Lemont Township High School's student body was made up primarily of white students at just over eighty percent during that period; Hispanic students represented around eleven percent; Asian students nearly five percent; and black students less than one percent (Illinois Report Card).
