Avon Lake Student Earns Perfect ACT Score

AVON LAKE, OH — Ryan Keller became the second Avon Lake High School student to earn a perfect 36 on the ACT this school year. He joins Irwin Deng in the exclusive club.

Earning a perfect 36 on the ACT is extremely rare. Less than 0.2 percent of the Class of 2018 earned a composite 36. That means approximately 3,741 students (out of 1,914,817) got a 36 last year.

Keller's accomplishment was made all the more impressive because he did not study for or otherwise prepare for the exam.

“I went into the test thinking I will wait and see the score I get the first time, then maybe invest in prep books or other ways to prepare. We have a lot of smart kids at this school,” Keller said.

The future is still wide open for Keller, who, at 16, is only a junior in high school. He is considering applying to the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) in Cambridge. He is also considering a school a little closer to home — the University of Cincinnati, which offers programs in music and game design.

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Keller has not yet decided on what he would like to major in during his university years, but he knows he'd like to be involved in game design in the future.

He's also got plenty of time to keep up his busy extracurricular schedule. He is a member of the high school marching band, pit orchestra, jazz band, symphonic band, math club, cross country and track. He enjoys programming and writing music.

When asked to give advice to other students, here's what Keller said: "Try everything. All through my school years I tried lots of different activities and sports. It wasn’t until I outpaced everyone running in seventh-grade, that I realized cross country and track were my sports. But if I had not tried it at all back then, I would not have known I liked it or was pretty good.”

Keller's parents are William and Kerri Keller. His father works in business at Bendix Corporation and his mother works for NASA in computers.

Photo from Avon Lake Schools