ROGERS -- Mary Treacy had a good feeling upon finishing the ACT in October, her fourth time taking the exam. The only question was whether she'd achieved the top score possible.
"It was the most confident I'd felt so far, but I knew it would be close and I was just hoping for the best," said Treacy, 16, a Rogers High School junior.
Top ACT scores
Mary Treacy was one of two Rogers School District students known to have achieved a composite 36 on the ACT this year; the other was Morgan Dunn, a junior at Heritage High School. The last Rogers student to do it before them was Olivia Paschal, a Rogers High junior at the time, in February 2013.
Source: Staff report
The suspense ended about two weeks later when Treacy learned she indeed had attained the top composite score of 36. She had earned a 35 twice in her previous three tries dating back to her freshman year.
A top score on the ACT is a rare feat. Only 12 of the 26,955 Arkansas students from the graduating class of 2015 who took the ACT earned a 36, according to Ed Colby, senior director of media and public relations for ACT. The average composite score among Arkansas' 2015 senior class was 20.4.
"She's obviously a very intelligent student," Charles Lee, Rogers High School principal, said about Treacy. "Most people would be very content with that 35, but she wanted that perfect score. We're very proud of her and glad she's a Mountie, and we know this will open a lot of doors for her."
Treacy is the second of four children of Bill and Marjorie Treacy of Rogers. She attended St. Vincent de Paul Catholic School for prekindergarten through eighth grade before enrolling in Rogers High for her freshman year.
The ACT is a national college entrance exam that consists of four multiple-choice tests in English, mathematics, reading and science. Each portion is scored on a scale of 1-36. The composite score on the ACT is the average of the four test scores, so it's possible to achieve a 36 without making the top score on each portion.
Treacy got a 36 on the English, math and reading portions and a 34 in science on her latest attempt, she said. ACT rounded up the average of those four scores -- 35.5 -- to get Treacy's composite score.
Treacy is a straight-A student. She challenges herself with Advanced Placement classes; this past semester she had five on her schedule.
Her interests go beyond the classroom, however. She plays soccer and she's played the flute for several years. She's a part of several school clubs, including a Model United Nations club she helped launch this year. She's also a big football fan.
"She's smart, but she doesn't keep her nose in the books," said Catherine Suski, who was Treacy's teacher for both AP calculus and AP statistics this past semester. "She knows how to be a kid. She knows when it's time to work and when it's time to play and she manages her time well, and that's one of the reasons she made a 36."
Treacy is particularly strong in math, Suski said.
"She will ask for clarification and make sure she fully understands it and rarely makes a mistake," Suski said. "When she does work, she's pretty methodical. I've had a lot of kids who have algebra issues, so they make careless mistakes in their calculus. Mary's not one of them."
Suski had not had Treacy as a student until this fall semester, but she became acquainted with her earlier through Treacy's older brother, Billy, who graduated in May and is now a freshman at the University of North Carolina.
"Billy would say, 'I'm smarter than Mary,'" Suski said.
"We've always been competitive," Mary Treacy said about her brother, adding she outscored him on the ACT.
Treacy said she's been a good test taker her entire life. As for her advice to those preparing to take the ACT, she said good time management is crucial.
"You have to pace yourself. That's something you get comfortable with the more you take it," she said.
NW News on 12/22/2015