Lemont HS Junior Becomes School's Second Ever to Land a Perfect ACT Score

Lemont High School junior Taylor Campos is one of the school’s top student-athletes. She has excelled as a distance runner on the school’s cross country and track and field squads, and has accumulated a GPA of better than 4.50 while taking the most rigorous classes Lemont High School offers. Campos recently learned that she had joined a very select club, as she became just the second Lemont High School student ever to record a perfect 36 on the ACT.

While the actual number of students across the country earning a composite score of 36 varies from year to year, 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 2014, only 1,400 of nearly 1.85 million students earned a composite score of 36 on the ACT.

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. Campos aced them all.

Campos is a two-time IHSA Cross Country state qualifier, and last fall, she received all-state honors after posting a school record time (17:56) on the 3-mile course and earning a 23rd-place finish at the Class 2A State Meet. She helped her team to a fourth-place finish at the event, which is the best placement in school history. This weekend, Campos will make her IHSA Track and Field State Finals debut when she competes in the 3200 meter run at the Class 3A State Finals. She reached the state finals after putting a down a school-record time of 11:14.92 in sectional competition.

Campos currently is enrolled in four Advanced Placement classes, and she is slated to take five more classes at the AP level or greater next year. She has been inducted into the National Honor Society, National English Honor Society, and the Mu Alpha Theta mathematics honor society. She has participated in state finals competition for both the Future Business Leaders of America and Worldwide Youth in Science & Engineering teams, and has even earned national medalist honors through the National Spanish Examinations program.

Campos has demonstrated leadership abilities by serving as a class officer and as a member of the Student Council, and also is one of just eight area students serving on Illinois State Representative Jim Durkin’s Youth Council. She is the Public Relations Chair for the school’s Interact Club, dedicates dozens of hours annually to various community service activities, and is a tutor for the school’s Special Education/STEM program.

The first Lemont student to earn a perfect score of 36 on an ACT exam was Marjorie Dallmann ‘12.

ALSO ON PATCH