Marist Senior Aces ACT Exam With Top Composite Score of 36

CHICAGO, IL -- A Marist High School senior has earned a top composite score of 36 on a recent ACT exam. Samantha Reidy, of Palos Heights, is the fifth Marist student to score a perfect 36 in the past thirteen years. On average, less than one-tenth of one percent of students who take the ACT earns the top score. Among test takers in the high school graduating class of 2014, only 1,407 of nearly 1.85 million students earned a composite score of 36.

Reidy is a graduate of Independence Junior High School in Palos Heights. She said she took the exam six or seven times with the goal of achieving a perfect 36 score. While Reidy has carried a heavy Advanced Placement course load, she has balanced it with participation in National Honor Society, Spanish National Honor Society, basketball, volleyball, and the math team, which Marist says is the number one Catholic school team in the state and fifth overall.

This smart senior is considering University of California at Berkeley, University of Texas at Austin, Colorado School of Mines, and California Institute of Technology (Caltech). She hopes to pursue a degree in chemical or biomedical engineering.

The ACT consists of tests in English, mathematics, reading and science. Each test is scored on a scale of 1 to 36, and a student's composite score is the average of the four test scores. Some students also take ACT’s optional writing test, but the score for that test is reported separately and is not included within the ACT composite score. ACT test scores are accepted by all major U.S. colleges. Exceptional scores of 36 provide colleges with evidence of student readiness for the academic rigors that lie ahead.

Other recent graduates who scored 36 include Becca Valek ’17, Jason Phelan ’16, Andrew Lynch ’10, and Peter O’Malley ’04.