AJC: Four Area Students Achieve A Perfect 2400 On The SAT

Four area students score 2400 on SAT — perfect

Tom Hui is a self-described video game lover. Michelle Liu calls herself a nerd. Marissa Pan simply likes books, and Tanya Nguyen prefers balance in her life.

What do they have in common? All scored 2400 on the SAT, putting them in the elite company of 297 nationwide and 10 in Georgia earning perfect scores last year.

How did they do it? In addition to supportive parents and a whole lot of reading, here are their answers:


Tom Hui

He didn’t study much and everybody knew it. An only child of an online salesman and doctor’s assistant, most of Cong “Tom” Hui’s time was spent playing video games.

Still, by the time this straight-A student entered seventh grade, his parents wanted him to start preparing for the SAT. So from then on, Tom was in one prep class or another.

“My parents are really enthusiastic about these things,” he said.

By his junior year, Tom was ready to give it a try. Score 2200 and you won’t have to take it again, his parents, Xiufang Wu and Qin Hui, told him.

Tom says he wasn’t feeling well the January morning of the test but soldiered on. He was sure he missed a few questions, but he wasn’t worried. He scored 2190. His parents wanted him to try again.

“At that time, I felt it was the level I was at,” he said.

Still, between that test and the June exam, Tom said, he didn’t do much to prepare for the college entrance exam.

“Just a little practice before,” he said.

That little bit of practice paid off big time for Tom, now a Parkview High School senior. He scored a perfect 2400 and is poised to graduate second in his class.

“I was pretty surprised when I got to second,” he said. “I don’t think I got better. I just didn’t do any worse.”

His tip: Do as many practice tests as possible.


Marissa Pan

She was born to an epidemiologist and a computer science professor who always stressed the value of education. (Blogger's note: The "Valuation Of Education" is NOT a rare commodity that is exclusive to anyone in particular)

But Marissa Pan, 18, wanted to achieve as much as her parents did. It helped that she loved school and loved to read. Growing up, she spent hours reading the latest fiction, devouring Harry Potter, soaking up Shel Silverstein’s poetry.

“That was really a critical component,” she said. “I love a good book.”

She must love A’s, too.

“I actually never got a B,” she said.

Even so, the very thought of taking a college entrance exam made Marissa nervous. In the spring of her junior year at Alpharetta High School, she dived into a four-week prep course.

On the morning of the exam, Marissa got up, had a fried egg with toast for breakfast and tossed some cheese and crackers into her purse in case she got hungry.

About 7 a.m., a girlfriend picked her up and they headed to the Chattahoochee High School testing site. They talked about everything except the exam.

Marissa knew there was no use stressing over the test, but she couldn’t help being a little nervous.

She blazed through the exam. When the results came back weeks later, Marissa had scored a perfect 2400.

“It was incredible,” she recalled in a telephone interview from her Harvard dormitory. “I was so surprised, especially since it was my first time.”

Her tip: Prepare beforehand, but on testing day realize that what happens, happens; go into the room with confidence and a positive attitude.



Michelle Liu

As a little girl, Michelle Liu loved learning new things.

When other kids in her Alpharetta neighborhood were out playing, Michelle was reading books, honing her vocabulary or doing math problems her mother, Helen, provided.

“I don’t know why, but I thought that was fun,” she said.

She was a seventh-grader the first time she took the SAT.

Back then, the highest you could get on the college entrance exam was 1600. Liu, who wanted to qualify for Duke University’s Talent Identification Program, scored 1540.

She took the exam a second time after completing her sophomore year and the test had changed so that 2400 was a perfect score. That time, Michelle was hoping for a spot in a calculus class at Georgia Tech and needed a math score. She got in with a 2380, scoring 780 on the math portion.

Michelle was pleased with the score, but the 20-point deficit haunted her. Math was her best subject. She needed to best that portion of the test.

“It was sort of like a challenge to see if I could do better,” she said.

Two years later, in October of her senior year, Michelle took the test again.

“I figured it wouldn’t be a problem as long as I wasn’t careless,” she said. “I was aiming for 2400 and so I checked every answer twice.”

Michelle got the score she wanted and now she’s heading off to Princeton.

Her tip: Start early building your vocabulary.

Tanya Nguyen

Tanya Nguyen had a role model in her sister, Anne, and positive reinforcement from her mother, Lan Nguyen.

Watching Anne, Tanya said, it was clear that it was possible to have a strong academic life and still enjoy life.

“I study a fair amount of time, but I wasn’t obsessed,” she said.

And so the 18-year-old Roswell High School graduate was careful to balance schoolwork with extracurricular activities.

She juggled a full load of Advanced Placement courses with helping head the policy debate team, fencing and organizing book drives.

In some ways, those activities helped when it came time to take the college entrance exam, especially the policy debate team.

“That helped me because you had to read a lot of articles,” Tanya recalled. “It helped me with critical thinking and vocabulary.”

It also helped that her mother insisted that Tanya and her twin sister, Kathy, practice taking the SAT, timing themselves to see how well they did in the allotted time.

Tanya first took the test in the seventh grade and scored 1290 out of 1600.

The summer after her sophomore year, she helped organize a small group of friends who met three times a week to take practice tests.

“I was aiming for 2300 and above,” Tanya said of her second effort.

When she checked her score online, she couldn’t believe it.

She refreshed the screen and the scores were the same — 800 for each of the three sections.

“Obviously, I was very happy,” she said. “I ran downstairs and told my mom.”

Her tip: Practice taking timed tests.