When he was just 12, Steven Olsen took the ACT test – just for fun.  His score wasn’t too bad – 30 out of 36 points.  Just a few years later (this February), he has made a perfect score on the pre-college test with a composite score of 36.  Yet Olsen is just a sophomore at Baton Rouge Magnet High School (BRMHS) and isn’t required to take the test yet.

Olsen is the second student in the past year at BRMHS to earn a perfect score on the ACT.  In September, Jesse Tan, a senior at Baton Rouge Magnet High School, could claim what only one in 3,330 students nationwide could at that time -- a perfect score of 36 on last year’s American College Testing (ACT) exam.  Usually, the school district reports its upcoming graduate’s ACT scores in September of their senior year.

Olsen, however, is only 15 and in the 10th grade.  He joined BRMHS this year looking for a more challenging math programs.  Currently, he is taking American History Advanced Placement, Advanced Math -- Honors, English II – Honors and Chemistry – Honors.

Last summer, Olsen took the Advanced Program course in Algebra II at Northwestern State University and made an A – earning credit at BRMHS. He plans to participate in the program again this summer.  His current grade point average is 4.381 with a class rank of 11 out of 300.

This week, Olsen is at the Mu Alpha Theta (math) convention in Baton Rouge.  He loves math, computer and science class work and also is a member of the school’s Computer Science and the Science clubs.  This school year, he won second place at his high school science fair. “He built a windmill by himself,” said his mother, Elaine Olsen.  “He figured it out on his own and built it.  Then he went to the LSU regional science fair and won third place.  He wants to be an engineer, but he’s not sure what specialty yet.  I’m hoping he can go to some classes over the summer that tell the difference between Aerospace, Mechanical and Electrical engineering.”

Olsen’s father, Doug Olsen, said the student has been getting college inquiries in the mail since he was 12 when he took the ACT for the first time and scored so high.  His first choice is to attend MIT with Rice University as a back up.

Also a whiz at tennis and ping pong, Olsen hopes to make the school’s tennis team next year.  He is a member of the Broadmoor Methodist Church.

With aggressive, proactive preparation, plus an emphasis on core subject matter and literacy in public school curriculum, more than 1,300 East Baton Rouge Parish School System students took the college preparatory test in the spring of 2008 and lead the school district to its highest level in five years.

East Baton Rouge Parish’s public schools’ average ACT score grew to 19.7 points from 19.5 the previous year.  The increase of 0.2 points for the East Baton Rouge Parish School System is well within yelling distance of the nation’s unchanged average of 21.1 points.  The State average, 20.1 is 0.2 points less than last years average of 20.3. The largest gains in the district occurred in English, which grew by .3 points.

The ACT is a standardized achievement examination for college admissions in the United States produced by ACT, Inc. The ACT test has historically consisted of four tests:  English, math, reading, and science reasoning. ACT is a curriculum-based measure of college readiness.  In Louisiana, ACT scores are part of the determination for the Tuition Opportunity Program for Students (TOPS).