Yeongwoo Hwang, a student at the Arkansas School for Mathematics, Sciences and the Arts, recently accomplished something very few people do — he earned the top score on the ACT test.
Hwang, a junior from Jonesboro, scored a composite 36, the highest score a student can earn on the test. Less than one-tenth of 1 percent of students who take the ACT earn the top score, according to the ACT website. While the number of students earning the score varies each year, only 781 of the more than 1.66 million students who graduated in 2012 and took the test earned a 36, according to the website.
It was the second time Hwang took the test. He scored a composite 35 on his first attempt. Each of the four sections of the test is scored on a 1 to 36 scale. The four sections are averaged together for the composite score. He decided to take the test again, although he knew that it would be hard to improve on the score.
"The first time I took it, I didn't take the writing part," Hwang said. The writing test, which is scored separately, is optional. Many colleges outside of Arkansas require the writing score, however. Hwang said he hopes to attend MIT or Carnegie Mellon University to study computer science. That led him to decide to take the test again for a writing score and to improve his English score.
Hwang said he may take the test again, despite his top score. If he does, Hwang said he’ll focus on the writing test, in which the student must write an essay on a topic presented during the test in 20 minutes.
Hwang is the son of Kyoungsuk Ahn and Yeonsang Hwang of Jonesboro.