Lemont Senior Scores Perfect 36 on ACT

LEMONT, IL — Senior Sarah Hagen is one of the top students in Lemont High School’s Class of 2017. She has excelled academically, maintaining a perfect grade point average while tackling some of the most rigorous courses that Lemont High School offers, and is widely involved in the school’s extra-curricular program. Hagen joined some select company earlier this year when she became just the third student in school history to score a 36 on the ACT exam.

On average, less than one-tenth of one percent of students who take the ACT earn the top score. For example, in the high school graduating class of 2015, fewer than 1,600 of more than 1.9 million students earned an ACT composite score of 36.

The ACT consists of tests in English, mathematics, reading and science. Each test is scored on a scale of 1-36, and a student’s composite score is the average of the four test scores. Hagen mastered them all.

Hagen began her career at Lemont High School as an eighth grader, as she was one of a handful of students from her class to take an accelerated math class on campus while still a student at Old Quarry Middle School. She studied abroad in Germany as a freshman.

Since returning home to Lemont, Hagen has been a mainstay in a variety of extra-curricular activities. She is a three-year member of the marching band, and served as a percussion section leader for Lemont’s state runner-up band this fall. She was a member of Lemont’s South Suburban Conference-Blue Division champion Scholastic Bowl team as a junior, and is a member of both the school’s a cappella choir and its community service club, Interact.

Hagen was cited as an AP Scholar with Distinction earlier this fall after averaging a score of 4.60 on five Advanced Placement exams last spring. This year, she is enrolled in two more AP classes and a college-level math class, and also is part of an advanced science research class that works in conjunction with Argonne National Laboratory. She also was tabbed with National Merit Commended Student accolades this fall.

A member of the National Honor Society and Science National Honor Society, Hagen serves as a council member for the school’s chapter of the Mu Alpha Theta math honor society. She even earned silver medalist honors in a national exam sponsored by the American Association of Teachers of French.

The only other Lemont students to earn a 36 on an ACT exam were Marjorie Dallmann ‘12 and Taylor Campos ‘16.