Student earns pair of perfect test scores
Winter Park senior defies the odds on his first ACT, SAT attempt
Literature enthusiast? Math genius? Dedicated cellist? Like many high schoolers, Winter Park High School senior Brenton Zhang said he’s worried about figuring out which version of himself to market to college admissions officers.
“In the end, like all competitions, college essays are boiled down to how am I going to best sell myself,” said Brenton, 17. “How do I want to package everything?”
However, unlike most high schoolers, Brenton doesn’t have to stress about his test scores when he’s applying for college. He received perfect scores on both the ACT and SAT — on his first attempt.
According to The College Board, the organization that administers the SAT, out of the about 2.1 million students who took the exam in 2018, only 7% received a score between 1400 and 1600, and
only a fraction of a percent received a perfect score. In Florida, of the 176,746 students who took the SAT in 2018, only 3.1% received a score between 1400 and 1600.
Acing the ACT is just as challenging. Of the more than 1.9 million students in the class of 2018 that took the ACT, only 3,741 students received a composite score of 36, the highest possible score, an ACT spokeswoman wrote in an email. That’s about 0.2%.
Brenton managed to make it in both groups.
He said he didn’t have much time to study in the weeks leading up his March test date for the SAT, so most of his studying came in the last week before the exam. He tried to squeeze in as many practice problems as possible and attempted stay calm on the day of the test.
“I try to treat it like any other day,” Brenton said. “I was more anxious in the times after the test waiting for the scores.”
He said he didn’t think he was in the right mindset and didn’t feel confident that he did well. He was
sitting in math class when the SAT score came in and he realized he got a perfect score. It was like a wave of validation, silencing the voice in his head telling him his hard work was worthless.
“It was actually pretty cool,” Brenton said. “I was not expecting it because I totally believed I bombed the test.”
Even though he didn’t have much time to study directly for the tests, Brenton has been preparing since the beginning of his junior year, when he started offering SAT tutoring to his peers.
“My mom was like ‘yay’ and my dad was also like ‘yay.’ It was good,” Brenton said. “It’s pretty much what you would expect of the typical Asian family.”
Brenton’s parents moved to America from China in 1994 and his mother, Ying Li, said she’s very proud of her son’s success. She said he’s been academically advanced since he was a child. He started reading when he was 3 years old and was put in the gifted students program when he started kindergarten.
“He was reading a lot when he was young,” Li said. “He’s always been an independent little kid, he always knew what he was doing, and he always loved music.”
Li said one of the things she admires most about her son is that, despite how busy he is, he always finds time to play cello for the seniors at an assisted living home on Wednesday afternoons.
His mother recalled asking Brenton how he thought he’d done on the SAT.
His response: “OK.” “He is very humble kid. He never says anything about himself,” Li said. “He’s doing really well in school and he never wants to talk about it.”
She said wherever he goes next, she’ll be proud.
Brenton said he has prepared a list of about 10 to 15 colleges to which he plans on applying, including Northwestern, Vanderbilt, Cornell, Harvard and the University of Florida.
He says doesn’t have a top choice — he picked each school on that list for a reason, and he’d be honored to attend any one of them.
Wherever he lands, he wants to double major in mathematics and music. Until then, he said he’s planning to continue growing in the things he loves: reading, math and music.