So far this school year, 11 Ladue Schools students have earned a perfect score on their ACT exam. Typically, the test is taken during students’ junior or senior years of high school in order to test their college readiness. However this year, one student in particular stood out—Ladue Middle School eighth-grader Anthony Wang. These students received a composite score of 36 on the test by scoring high in the following subject areas: English, Mathematics, Reading and Science Reasoning:
- Seniors: Justin Chen, Macey Goldstein, Charles Loitman, Audrey Wang and Edward Wu
- Juniors: Akshay Govindan, Donovon Moore, Nikol Nikolova, Seema Patil and Akhil Kondepudi
- Eighth-Grade: Anthony Wang
A perfect composite score on the exam is rare; on average, only about one-tenth of 1% of all test takers earn the top score. Among U.S. high school graduates in the class of 2017, just 2,760 out of more than 2 million students who took the ACT earned a composite score of 36.
“We are incredibly proud of these students, and their success is due in part to all educators who have touched their lives up until this point,” Superintendent Dr. Donna Jahnke said. “I have no doubt that this is just the beginning of great accomplishments these students will experience.”
Anthony received the perfect score after his first try, taking the exam on Dec. 9, 2017. Since neither Anthony nor his parents had any expectations for his first score, the only studying he did for the exam was to spend two hours on a practice test the afternoon before the exam. Anthony’s mother, Meggie Wen, said the reason the family signed him up for the ACT so early was because he is bilingual—the family speaks Mandarin at home—and they wanted to assess his English level going into high school.
“We are pleased that Anthony is on the right track regarding his ELA (English Language Arts), and we are very grateful to all of his teachers and the staff at LMS, especially Mrs. Worthington, his counselor, for all of their support and confidence in him,” his mother said. “There are so many talented, excellent students at Ladue, and Anthony was lucky this time. We hope that he will pursue his passion for math and science, and make a valuable contribution to the world.”