Teen comes up aces on both SAT, ACT

updated 4:58 p.m. ET Aug. 18, 2006

WICHITA, Kan. - A teenager has achieved a rare feat: perfect scores on both the American College Testing exam and the SAT.

Jakub Voboril, 17, a senior at Bishop Carroll High School, learned last month that he had scored a 36 on his ACT, which he took in June. His perfect score, one of only two in Kansas on the June test, came after he scored 32 and 34 on his first two tries.

“Part of me said, ‘That’s good enough. You can stop there,”’ he said. “But I decided to take it one more time to see what happened.”

He took the SAT the same week. Those results — a perfect 2400 — came in shortly after he got his ACT scores.

Voboril comes from good genes: his two older sisters were high school valedictorians. He hasn’t settled on a college or major, but has considered math, philosophy and law, possibly at the University of Notre Dame or Princeton.

He said he didn’t have an answer for how he scored so well.

“It’s weird, because before I took it, I checked out a couple books from the library. I expected there to be this big secret that all the smart people had that I just had to read.

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“But I found out there’s not a secret formula. Obviously, you have to pay attention in classes, take classes that are going to teach you what you need to know — that sort of thing.”

No statistics are available on how many students have aced both tests, but it’s a safe bet Voboril doesn’t have a lot of company.

“Suffice it to say, it’s a very, very small number,” said Brian O’Reilly, a spokesman for the College Board, which administers the SAT.

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