LITTLE ROCK (KATV) — A student at Maumelle Charter High School achieved what few students nationwide achieve: a perfect score of 36 on the ACT exam.
14-year-old freshman Anant Borad made Maumelle Charter history with his perfect score. The school says they hope many more perfect scores are in the near future, but it’s likely that those won’t come from students any younger than Borad.
“I’m feeling great. I couldn’t believe it when I first found out,” Borad says.
Watch the full interview with Borad on Little Rock ARC:
Less than 1% of students make a perfect score, and it only took Borad one try.
“Although I was really nervous, the minute before the test, but then I reminded myself constantly that I spent 3 months preparing for this just for this moment, this preparation would help me,” Borad says.
Most students take the exam more than once, some even up to 12 times, but Borad says the one-try success took a daily routine of an hour and a half with his nose in the prep books.
“In the three months that I was preparing for it, I took roughly 10-12 practice tests, and I made sure to space those out in intervals of 1-2 weeks to make sure that as I was getting closer to the test, I knew what it would feel like,” Borad says.
It all paid off. Borad is described as a top-notch student by his teachers.
“He sits right up front and center in all of my classes, and he’s just super engaged in class,” Mateo Johnson, Borad’s history teacher, says.
As a member of the quiz bowl team, Model UN Club, and his school’s student government, Borad is a dedicated leader even outside of the classroom.
“One of the things we really work with Anand on is setting personal goals from a young age,” Katie Johnson, Principal of Maumelle Charter High School, says, “We knew he was academically successful, but we wanted him to also be well-rounded, and we wanted college to more a matter of him choosing which college he wants to go to rather than a matter of him trying to get accepted into a certain college.”
Borad says he’s unsure of where he wants to attend college just yet, but he knows he wants to pursue a career in STEM, and it’s no coincidence that his favorite section of the test is math.