A high school senior earned a perfect score on a national college admissions exam to become the only student in Hawaii to ace the test this year.
Gillian Miyuki Desmond of Roosevelt High School scored a perfect 36 on the ACT test. It’s a feat only 781 students out of more than 1.66 million achieved last year. Last year Jason Cheng of Kaiser High School scored a 36 as well.
The standardized test covers English, reading, math and science and is accepted by all major U.S. colleges.
Desmond’s grade-point average is 4.4, and she received the highest possible score of five on Advanced Placement exams in chemistry, statistics and English. She also scored 2,280 out of 2,400 on her SATs.
Her father credits her academic success to reading and music. She could recite the alphabet at 15 months old and was reading “Harry Potter” in second grade. She started playing ukulele in third grade and eventually played clarinet in band.
“When she was old enough to walk, basically, I was taking her to the library already,” said Richard Desmond. “She always liked it.”
As Desmond starts her senior year next week, she’ll be busy applying for scholarships and is considering studying math or science at Stanford University, the University of Southern California, the California Institute of Technology or the University of Hawaii at Manoa.
In other awards and recognitions:
>> Hawaii State Federal Credit Union awarded 15 academic scholarships for the upcoming school year. Each student received $2,000 as part of Hawaii State FCU’s 18th annual scholarship program to help members pursue a higher education. Scholarships were awarded based on financial need, academic merit and extracurricular activities. Members and dependents of Hawaii State FCU attending a university, college or trade/vocational school were eligible for the scholarships.
College freshmen recipients include George Zhang, Johns Hopkins University (electrical engineering); Gerald Corpuz, UH-Manoa (biology); Jennifer Wong, University of Washington (biology); Justin Isobe, University of Nevada-Las Vegas (kinesiology); Natalie Fong, New York University (fine arts photography); Noellie Nemoto, Occidental College (biology); and Troy Kakugawa, University of Puget Sound-Tacoma (civil engineering).
Returning college undergraduate recipients: Aixiu A. Cooney, UH-Manoa (Chinese language); Claudia Sanchez Guzman, The Art Institute of California-San Francisco (media arts and animation); and Roland L.H. Lee, UH-Manoa (social work).
Graduate school recipients: Lauren A. Kawana, University of California-Berkeley, master’s in journalism; and Sheri T. Fitzgerald, UH-Manoa, doctorate in education (curriculum studies).
Community college/vocational/trade school recipients: Andrea M.H. Cadelina, Kapiolani Community College (liberal arts); and Sienna K. Antolin, Kapiolani Community College (pre-radiologic technology).
Returning adult student recipient: Edwin U. Bruno, Windward Community College, liberal arts.
>> RevoluSun partnered with the nonprofit Surfrider Foundation’s Oahu Chapter for a recent Sandy Beach cleanup that cleared more than 400 pounds of trash.
The cleanup focused on small trash that is difficult to pick up. In about 90 minutes volunteers combed the beach, removing more than 2,000 cigarette butts, almost 600 bottle caps and more than 300 drink cans/bottles and single-use food containers. They also collected rubbish ranging from plastic bags to fishing nets.
RevoluSun donated a mobile sand sifter, developed by local contractor Jason Tucker Hills, to the beach-cleaning efforts. The sand sifter is designed to clean sand by pulling out micro-plastics — plastic particles or pellets packaged with manufactured plastic products. Also cleared were fragments or fibers of plastic derived from the breakdown of larger plastic products.
