The email was almost too good to be true.
“I went and woke him up because I thought I was reading it wrong,” Dara Sandland said.
She wasn’t. Her son Trent, a junior at Frisco ISD’s Liberty High School, had scored a perfect composite score of 36 on the ACT test. He only took it once in December.
“I couldn’t believe it. I still can’t believe it,” he said. “It’s been very surreal. I’m very happy.”
To give the accomplishment some perspective, less than one-tenth of one percent of all students nationwide who take the ACT earn a top score.
Among test takers in the high school graduating class of 2012, only 781 of more than 1.66 million students earned a composite score of 36.
“I believe it has opened up a lot of opportunities for me,” Sandland said. “I’m looking to do the best I can to finish my junior year with the best GPA and start looking at funding for college.”
The ACT college readiness assessment 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. Some students also take ACT’s optional Writing Test, but the score for that test is reported separately and is not included within the ACT composite score.
In 2013, the average composite ACT score was 20.9 for students in Texas and across the nation. The average score in Frisco ISD was 23.6.
Three other FISD students have also earned a perfect composite score of 36 on the ACT, including Centennial High School senior Gianna Mason, Heritage High School senior Revanth Poondla and 2013 Liberty graduate Tiffany Kuan.
Sandland credits Liberty’s PSAT TEAM class, practice tests and a culture of healthy competition among friends for helping him achieve a perfect score.
His advice for other students?
“Check out the ACT website and everything that they tell you is to take advanced math classes, take advanced English classes and always be looking to learn more,” he said. “Practice tests are important.”
Sandland hopes to study computer engineering at Stanford University, Northwestern University, Brigham Young University or the University of Texas at Austin. He is the son of Ian and Dara Sandland of Plano.