Incoming Roosevelt High senior nets perfect score on ACT exam

By Star-Advertiser Staff and News Service

A high school senior earned a perfect score on a national college admissions exam to become the only student in Hawaii to ace the test this year.

Gillian Miyuki Desmond of Roosevelt High School scored a perfect 36 on the ACT test. It’s a feat only 781 students out of more than 1.66 million achieved last year. Last year Jason Cheng of Kaiser High School scored a 36 as well.

The standardized test covers English, reading, math and science and is accepted by all major U.S. colleges.

Desmond’s grade-point average is 4.4, and she received the highest possible score of five on Advanced Placement exams in chemistry, statistics and English. She also scored 2,280 out of 2,400 on her SATs.

Her father credits her academic success to reading and music. She could recite the alphabet at 15 months old and was reading “Harry Potter” in second grade. She started playing ukulele in third grade and eventually played clarinet in band.

“When she was old enough to walk, basically, I was taking her to the library already,” said Richard Desmond. “She always liked it.”

As Desmond starts her senior year next week, she’ll be busy applying for scholarships and is considering studying math or science at Stanford University, the University of Southern California, the California Institute of Technology or the University of Hawaii at Manoa.