FLORENCE, SC (WBTW) – Each year, high school students are required to take standardized tests like the ACT and SAT. Colleges use these scores along with a student’s class standing to grant admission into their schools.
One Pee Dee student scored a perfect score on the ACT this year. His name is Neil Dey, and he is in eleventh grade at Wilson High School.
According to ACT statistics, less than one tenth of one percent of students make a perfect score on the standardized test, and Dey’s score is putting him ahead of the game.
“I’m thinking of a lot of California schools like Berkeley, Stanford, Cal Tech. I’m also thinking about Georgia Tech and MIT,” said Dey.
The ACT isn’t the only test that’s getting the student recognized.
“I’m getting a lot of college emails because of my PSAT, but I guess I checked some sort of text box saying yes send my PSAT scores to schools,” said Dey.
Dey says he was only ten points shy of a perfect score on the PSAT.
“So I missed two reading questions. One of them I was reading through it again and I was like ‘oh, the answer is definitely A why didn’t I bubble in A..and so then I looked at what I responded and was like oh I bubbled in B…darn,” laughed Dey.
His teachers say it’s that mentality that’s led him to where he is today.
“What you really need is not just intellectual gifts, but you need somebody who always makes sure they are prepared to move on to the next level, and that something as you heard Neil has striven for ever since seventh grade,” said Wilson High School’s IB Coordinator Patricia Evans.
Dey says he plans to major in computer science. He’s already on the robotics team at Wilson High School and says he works with computer programming there.
