Only 0.04% of students nationally who took the ACT college entrance exam received a perfect score last year. This year, 10 students, all from the same Irvine high school, beat the odds and are all celebrating perfect scores, the Huffington Post reports.
“I can tell you that’s not a common occurrence, and it is certainly a very strong achievement. We don’t often see 10 students from one high school in one year earning a 36 [perfect score on the ACT],” ACT spokesperson Ed Colby told The Huffington Post.
The ten students from Irvine University High School [1] who received perfect scores are Jessica Huang, Krystal Lai, James Liao, Andrew Ma, Jiho Park, Neel Sabnis, James and William Xue (twins), Alex Zivkovic and Jessica Zou. In 2011, 1,623,112 million students took the ACT and 734–52 in California–earned a perfect score. The ACT is a curriculum-based test, Colby explained. “It’s like a course exam in that way. It’s not the kind of test that test prep is going to help you get a 36. You have to learn content in challenging courses that you take in school,” he said. He added, “My guess is those are students who have been working very hard for a long time to learn what teachers are trying to get across in their classes.”