43
Matthew Rossi scores 36 on ACT
YOUNGSTOWN
Matthew Rossi, 17, of Poland has achieved a perfect score of a 36 on his ACT.
The ACT is a standardized test used for college admissions in the United States. According to blog.prepscholar.com, a perfect 36 is the rarest of all scores – just 0.136 percent of all test takers have earned a perfect ACT score.
When he found out his score, Matthew was ecstatic.
“I knew I could get the 36, and getting it on the third try was very satisfying,” he said.
But he doesn’t take all the credit for his exemplary score.
Matthew, a senior at Cardinal Mooney High School, also started early on the ACT, with his mother signing him up for his first take during his freshman year of high school.
“Being familiar with the test helped me do better on it at a later date,” he said. “The advice I always give to other students is to take it as many times as you can.”
“I really owe it to my parents,” Matthew said. “They’re both incredibly smart and have raised me in such a way as to foster in me a desire to learn. As soon as I could sit up, my mom started reading to me. An early start has paid dividends for me in reading comprehension and other areas. My parents have always been incredibly supportive of me in everything I do, and they’re the reason that I have the success I do.”
Gregg Rossi said some of Matthew’s success is due to his mother, Becky Distad, reading to him when he was younger.
“Then he became an avid reader himself,” Gregg said. “He has always been very observant and absorbs everything. His mother was a former math teacher, and he picked up math very easily. He is rare in my opinion in that he is strong both right-sided and left-sided of the brain. He also had a very strong network of intelligent family members on both sides. I am very proud of him.”
In addition to great parents, Matthew said he also has a great friends.
“[They] are very supportive of me, and I am supportive of them right back,” he said.
His future is undetermined, but Matthew has a few ideas as to what he wants.
“I’m applying to Notre Dame, Stanford, Yale, University of Miami (Fla.), Carnegie Mellon, and Princeton,” he said. “I’m probably going to end up at Stanford, ND or Miami, but it all depends on where I get accepted. ... I have a strong inclination toward science and like to think I could be a scientific researcher. I’m not yet sure what I’d research, but I love the idea of digging into the ways our world works.”