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Homewood-Flossmoor High School senior Everett Van Til has been named a National Merit finalist.
The National Merit Scholarship Program selects 6,870 finalists as National Merit Scholarship winners chosen for their abilities, accomplishment and potential for success in rigorous college studies. As one of those students, Van Til is eligible for scholarships provided by colleges, corporations and the National Merit Scholarship Corporation.
Each year, approximately 50,000 academically talented high school students are honored by the National Merit Scholarship Program.
From that group, 16,000 are named semi-finalists. H-F students Noelle Dolan and Frances Smith are 2025 National Merit Commended Scholars, placing them among the top 3%. The three honorees were selected based on the results of the preliminary SAT/National Merit Scholarship Qualifying Test taken in their junior year.
Van Til is planning to major in nuclear engineering examining “the interactions on the atomic level of our world, so really microscopic,” he said. He has not made a final college choice. After earning a bachelor’s degree, Van Til expects he’ll go on for a master’s degree in plasma physics and then move into research.
“What I want to do is go into energy. The nuclear power plants that we already have, they work with fission, but more so what I want to do is look at fusion, which is a newer type of energy production which we don’t really have any commercial viability for right now,” he said.
He has always been interested in science and math. As a student in H-F’s Project Lead the Way, a pre-engineering course, Van Til was able to participate in several programs outside the classroom.
“H-F has definitely supported my general engineering career, especially like a lot of schools don’t have in-depth, hands-on courses like Project Lead the Way. It’s been really nice to have access to that,” he said. He’s taken Project Lead the Way courses the last three years.
Twice Van Til has had the opportunity to be part of ACE-Chicago programs through Project Lead the Way. ACE (Architecture and Civil Engineering) gives students the chance to work on special projects.
During his junior year, he was part of a team of students who designed an Olympic village and Olympic housing.
This past summer, Van Til participated in a six-week ACE program at the Illinois Institute of Technology. He was one of a contingent of nearly two dozen high school students who designed a community space for Chicago’s Englewood neighborhood.
Van Til is involved in several extracurricular activities at H-F. He is a member of the Debate Team and serves as the captain of the public policy forum. He also is on the Chess Team.
Van Til qualified for state Mathletes competition with Gregory Mitchell as a two-person team, but he will forego that competition to compete in Scholastic Bowl’s national history competition in April.
Van Til is the son of Julie and Andrew Van Til of Flossmoor.
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