From left, Seneca Valley School Board President Jim Nickel; Soojin Kim, David Choi's mother; David Choi; and Superintendent Tracy Vitale at Monday night's school board meeting. The board presented Choi with a certificate of recognition for his perfect score of 36 on the ACT, a college preparatory exam.

JACKSON TWP — Two-tenths of one percent of the 1.9 million students who take the ACT each year earn a perfect composite score of 36 on their college preparatory exam.

Seneca Valley School District is home to one such student — David Choi, a junior whom the school board recognized at Monday night’s meeting.

Board member Fred Peterson told Choi his accomplishment is exemplary of what the district hopes its students achieve.

“You make us all proud,” he said.

The board asked Choi how he studied for the exam, which tests students’ abilities in English, math, reading and science. He said he took previous tests over the course of one or two months.

He also confessed that his perfect score wasn’t on the first test he took.

“I got a 35, and that wasn’t the score I wanted,” Choi said as the board laughed.

A composite score of 35 is still in the 99th percentile, according to the ACT’s website. Composite scores are averages of individual test section scores, and perfect scores do not necessarily mean every question was answered correctly.

Choi said he intends to go to college for computer science, and added he hopes to have relevant experience in the field before matriculating. He said that one college he plans to apply to is Carnegie Mellon University.