Less than 0.025 percent of the high school graduates in the United States who take the SAT exam every year get a “perfect score” of 2400.  Chandler McArthur, a senior at Baton Rouge Magnet High School, now joins the ranks of those test takers with the highest composite test score possible on the SAT.

According to the College Board, which administers the college entrance exam, there were 1,664,479 students in the class of 2012 who took the SAT during high school.   Of those, 360 achieved the highest possible score. The test has three sections (Critical Reading, Mathematics and Writing) each scored on a scale of 200 to 800 for a total composite score of 2400. The average composite score among student in the class of 2012 was 1,438.  A composite SAT score of 2100 puts a student in the 96th percentile, meaning that he or she scored better on the test than 96 percent of test takers.

McArthur, the son of Karen McArthur and the late Jon McArthur, is a member of the Junior Classical League, Mu Alpha Theta and the National Honor Society. Among his favorite books are Pearl S. Buck's “The Good Earth” and Voltaire's “Zadig.” In his spare time, he enjoys learning about mathematics, Latin, and history. McArthur hopes to attend either the University of Texas at Austin or Boston University and major in either Mathematics or The Classics.