Iowa Student Accomplishes Something Almost Impossible

Do you remember your time back in high school? For some, that might be a little longer than others but I remember it pretty positively. I was an okay student...not great but I was okay. I remember making lifelong friends and lifetime memories that my buddies and I still talk about to this day. I also remember taking this pretty important test.

Once you enter your second year of high school, you start learning about this really big test that takes all day to complete. It's a test that can really help you get into your dream college and it's also a test that might prevent you from going to the college you want.

Depending on what college you want to go to, most colleges require you to take the ACT or SAT. A student from Dubuque Hempstead accomplished something less than 1% of ACT test takers accomplish.

We've learned a LOT lately about the incredible dreams and accomplishments the youth in Iowa have done recently. There was a 6th grader who won the triple crown in wrestling, a senior who will box in the golden gloves nationals this week, and we can now add Charlie Driscoll to our list of incredible things younger Iowans have done.

According to KCRG, about 1.3 million students take the ACT each year. Only 3,000 kids who take the test receive a perfect score. Well, Charlie Driscoll, who's only a Junior at Dubuque Hempstead, has done just that. He received a perfect 36 on the ACT test he took this past March. Less than 0.5% of students who take the ACT receive a perfect score. According to Prep Scholar, it's actually closer to 0.313% of students.

What might be even more impressive than receiving a perfect ACT score is he almost did this back in December. According to Telegraph Herald, Charlie took the test back in December and received a score of 35. With a score of 35, Charlie would still find himself in the top 1% as Prep Scholar reports only 0.925% of students who take the ACT receive a score of 35.

It turns out that after receiving a score in the top 1%, Charlie wanted to try and beat it. He wasn't truly satisfied with the score he received on the science portion and decided to retake the test. According to Telegraph Herald, taking the test a second time was free so Charlie thought, why not?

He said,

It was free, and I thought I might as well go for a better score.

Charlie also shared what he did to prepare for the exam. He's obviously a pretty bright young man but he mentions time management played a major factor in his strategy. He told the Telegraph Herald,

I noticed from a lot of practice tests that the questions themselves usually aren’t the hardest part of the exam. It’s the time limit. So I generally tried to move on from question to question really quickly. By doing that, I generally finished with at least five to 10 minutes left in every exam, and I would go back and think harder about the ones that gave me more trouble.

To put into perspective how incredible this feat really is, the average score by ACT test takers is about 21. We've learned about some amazing kids this past month in the state of Iowa and all I can say is the future looks pretty dang bright for the Hawkeye State. Congratulations Charlie!