94 Percent of Glenbrook South 2012 Class Pursue Higher Education

More than 94 percent of Glenbrook South's graduating class of 2012 is pursuing higher education this fall at 149 campuses throughout the nation and select parts of the world. 

Oakton Community College, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign and the University of Illinois at Chicago remain the top three college choices selected by the former Glenbrook South students. Some of the other top selected colleges or universities include Illinois State, DePaul, Loyola, University of Missouri, Indiana University, Marquette, Miami (OH), Northern Illinois, Purdue, Lake Forest and University of Wisconsin at Madison. 

Of the 94.2 percent of 2012 graduates attending college, 85 percent are in the Midwest - 61 percent of them in Illinois. Eight graduates are attending overseas in the following countries: England, Antigua, Korea, India, Israel, Poland and Scotland. 

Four GBS graduates also were accepted into Cornell, Princeton and Yale. Ten have entered the military, one in Korea, seven have gone to work and another seven are taking a GAP year - two of those will be overseas. 

Additionally, three graduates also enrolled in career/technical education and 27 reported that they are participating in college athletics. 

National Merit Semifinalists, Commended 

Seven students from Glenbrook South have been named National Merit Semifinalists and 22 have been named Commended Students.  

National Merit Semifinalist students include: Austin Bream, Steven Kim, Matthew Park, Dina Peck, Faith Savaiano, Kaitlin Sontag and Elizabeth Woo. They join the nationwide pool of semifinalists that represent less than 1 percent of U.S. high school seniors and include the highest- scoring entrants in each state.

National Merit Commended students include: Gregory P. Abbott, Douglas G. Chan, Christopher Chu, Tamara M. Craven, Joshua Dein, Ellen Hirsch, Timothy J. Hofmockel, Avraham S. Kahane, Brandon C. Loebbaka, Rebecca L. Naal, Leah M. Perri, Alison D. Pigott, Evan J. Richter, Jordan A. Scherer, Zoe L. Shancer, Ethan M. Spalding, Ben E. Thompson, Isabelle B. Uhl, Jeremy D. Vollen, Nicolette C. Wells, Arthur T. Binstein and Gabriella R. Barnas. 

About 1.5 million juniors in more than 22,000 high schools entered the 2013 National Merit Scholarship Program by taking the 2011 Preliminary SAT/National Merit Scholarship Qualifying Test (PSAT/NMSQT®), which served as an initial screen of program entrants. 

To become a finalist, the semifinalist and their high school must submit a detailed scholarship application in which they provide information about the semifinalist's academic record, participation in school and community activities, demonstrated leadership abilities, and honors and awards received. A semifinalist must have an outstanding academic record throughout high school, be endorsed and recommended by a high school official, write an essay, and earn SAT scores that confirm the student's earlier performance on the qualifying test.

From the approximately 16,000 semifinalists, about 15,000 are expected to advance to the finalist level and in February they will be notified of this designation. All National Merit Scholarship winners will be selected from this group of finalists. 

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