St. Charles North senior aces ACT

Joseph Adamczyk did not hesitate to sign up for a second bout with the ACT, even though he had yet to receive his scores.

Within a week of signing up, the 16-year-old St. Charles North High School senior learned that he'd scored a 34 out of a possible 36 points.

Commendable, great even, but Adamczyk retook the exam anyway, since his parents, Joseph and Maura, had already paid for it.

It wasn't until July that he learned he'd done the nearly impossible. the St. Charles resident received his second round of scores. This time, Adamczyk got a perfect 36.

"I was ecstatic," he said.

No special tactics were used to prepare for the second test, Adamczyk said. He merely took it the first time, waited, and took it again.

Although statistics about ACT performance from his graduating class will not be available until August 2011, Director of Media Relations for the ACT Scott Gomer said that less than one-tenth of one percent of graduating seniors manage to pull off the top score.

For the graduating class of 2009 (the most recent statistics available), 1.2 million students took the test, with only 638 achieving the 36.

"It goes without saying, we're very proud of his accomplishments," Mark Moore, assistant principal of curriculum and instruction at St. Charles North, said upon hearing the news.

"It just continues to recognize that our school is continuing to improve academically. Over the past five years, the average composite has increased from a 22 to a 23.1."

Although he is unsure what he wants to pursue in college, Adamczyk plans to apply to Harvard, Cornell, Syracuse and Stanford, among other notable East and West Coast schools.

"I figured if I get into a solid college, I can figure out what I want to do from there," he said.