If college entrance test scores were lottery numbers, Waubonsie Valley High School would be a million-dollar winner. Three students from the Aurora high school have achieved perfect test scores on three different nationwide exams.
Tim Harrington-Taber of Aurora, 17, scored a perfect 240 on the PSAT; James Lottes of Naperville, 16, received a perfect 1600 on the SAT; and Dave Sierpina of Aurora, 18, obtained a perfect 36 on the ACT test.
“It’s amazing, it’s almost a fluke that you’d have three perfect scores in one year,” said Jim Schmid, an assistant principal at Waubonsie. “In my seven years here in guidance and in administration, we’ve only had one other perfect score, and that was an ACT test.”
To put one achievement into perspective, 673,000 students nationwide have taken the ACT since September, said Kelley Hayden of ACT Inc., based in Iowa City, Iowa. There are 18 perfect scores so far. Of the 39,000 students tested in Illinois, four received perfect scores, including Sierpina.
“I took the test last spring and got a 31, and I felt I could do better,” Sierpina said. “My attitude was that it didn’t matter how I did, and I didn’t have to take it seriously.”
He said that test takers’ worst enemy is panic when they don’t know an answer.
Sierpina, a senior, has applied to the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, with Illinois his preference. He said he intends to pursue degrees in electrical and computer engineering.
Harrington-Taber’s perfect PSAT scores arrived last week, and “I had to blink and make sure it really was what it said it was,” he said.
Though the test went well, he thought he had lost points on the difficult writing skills area.
Harrington-Taber, a junior, hopes that his perfect score will help qualify him as a National Merit Scholar, so he can receive financial aid.
“I want to go to Northwestern and ideally, study physics,” said Harrington-Taber, who ranks second in the junior class and competes on Waubonsie’s chess team.
Lottes’ perfect SAT scores arrived at his home over summer, while he was on a three-week trip to Germany. “I called from our first hotel in New York and my mom told me,” he said. “I said, `Are you sure?’ I was doubtful about it, and I didn’t really believe it for myself until I got home three weeks later.”
Lottes, a senior, said he was particularly careful to recheck all his math answers on the test, because careless mistakes are common. The vocabulary section was challenging as well, but he said he used the context to make some careful guesses.
Lottes also scored 35 out of 36 on the ACT test, and he hopes his top-notch scores help him gain admission to the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. He said he plans to study mechanical engineering and earn an advanced degree so he can do scientific and technical research.
Though test scores help differentiate candidates from one another during the admission process, they are just one element of the process, Schmid said.
“Very selective schools want activities and community services,” he said. “But [a perfect score] is a distinguishing factor and puts them in select company.”
