Way to go! Metro Atlanta high school student gets perfect score on ACT

CHEROKEE COUNTY, Ga. — A high school junior from Cherokee County is probably smarter than you. Maya Osborne just earned a perfect score on what many consider to be the most difficult college entrance exam ever -- the ACT.

Maya says when she read the letter of congratulations, she couldn’t believe it.

"I did not think it was mine. I cried for about an hour and then I took a nap,” she said.

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The 16-year old at River Ridge High School in Woodstock is not surprisingly a straight-A student.

"Am I shocked? Not so much. Could she do it? Absolutely. Am I impressed? Yes. It's a very tough test to get a perfect score on. And that she did it on the first try is unbelievable,” teacher Casey Belli said.

Belli teaches advanced placement calculus. Maya is in that class.

The ACT says 1.8 million students took the test this year. Just 4,879 of them earned the top score. That puts Maya in the top one-half of 1 percent.

So were there any of the more than 200 questions -- that take four hours to answer -- difficult for this top student?

"I haven't taken physics yet, and the science section is one-third physics. So, I was concerned. A lot of the questions are knowledge-based in that section. But it turned out well,” Maya said.

The principal says Maya is the first student to get a perfect score on the ACT at River Ridge.

Cox Media Group