'Looking to learn more and more'

Senior Amy Dai paused for a moment after listing the advanced placement courses she's taken in her four years at Cape Girardeau Central High School.

She already had ticked off AP Physics I, AP Physics II (which she self-studied independently with a teacher), AP Biology, AP Chemistry, AP U.S. History, AP World History, AP French and AP Environmental Science.

"I feel like I might be forgetting something," Dai said with a smile.

Possibly, but highly unlikely.

Dai, who also can speak Mandarin and some French, has learned a lot and forgotten little.

That's been proven by her ACT and SAT scores.

She totaled the maximum score on both -- a 36 on the ACT and a 2,400 on the SAT -- in the past year.

Completing the standardized-testing trifecta was the highest possible score (1,520) on the PSAT, a pre-test for the SAT.

Her reaction?

"It kind of blew me away," Dai said with a laugh about receiving her SAT results. "I couldn't believe that was what the paper was saying. I had to read it over a few times just to convince myself that my eyes weren't going haywire. It was definitely a pleasant surprise."

She later took the ACT, receiving the same results this past summer and putting her in even more elite company.

Less than 1 in 1,000 students earn a composite score of 36 on the ACT, which measures college candidates in English, mathematics, reading and science.

The SAT changed its scoring scale to 1,600 in March, but Maria Eugenia Alcon-Heraux, director of media relations with the College Board (the company that administers the SAT), said only five of 2,024 Missouri students in the class of 2016 scored the maximum 2,400 before the change.

The old version of the SAT, which tested in three categories -- reading, mathematics and writing -- produced just 579 maximum scores (0.035 percent) nationally from the 1,637,589 tests taken by seniors last year, according to Alcon-Heraux.

Central principal Chris Kase said the school has had a couple of students score 36 on ACTs in recent years, including Riley Knight last year, but he found no evidence of a student posting the maximum score on both tests.

It's also something neither the ACT nor College Board, two separate entities, can track.

"We have a number of students that achieve at the peak and are just exceptional students, but Amy is just certainly one in a million," Kase said. "Just to have as many qualities as she has, and then on top of that, her character and personality and willingness to serve and work with other students."

The classroom is just a part of the educational experience for Dai, who was born in Carbondale, Illinois, after her parents, Jack Dai, an engineer, and Ziping Liu, a computer science professor at Southeast Missouri State University, left China to attend graduate school in the United States.

She has been a member of the Central tennis team since her sophomore year, and she also devotes herself to the arts.

She began dance at the age of 5 -- she especially loves ballet and tap -- and self-published a fictional book, "Prophecy," as a freshman.

She's carved out a daily two-hour afternoon spot in her senior schedule to spend in the school's art studio.

"I pretty much like all of my core subjects, but one of the classes I really enjoy is art class, especially this year," Dai said. "I'm very fortunate the school allowed me to have a two-hour block of studio time to work on my paintings and drawing and sketching and just planning out more ideas. That's really fun. The teacher provides me feedback, of course, but also sometimes my classmates also help, and I bounce ideas off of them, too."

She also has been a member of the school's speech and debate team, exploring the pros and cons of current event issues and topics and presenting them -- sometimes individually and sometimes with a partner -- in a competitive environment against other schools. She said she finds the exploration and complexities appealing.

"I think all of the research and all of the reading I do through debate, I think it actually has helped me for preparing for the tests and things," Dai said.

It also didn't hurt that she's naturally inquisitive.

She self-studied beyond Physics I because it covered only "the mechanical side."

"I wanted to see what else there was in physics," Dai said. She also wanted to see what lay beyond AP Calculus II, going as far as studying Calculus III online.

"It's just nice to have some knowledge beforehand," Dai said about college.

Which leads to one of the few things she doesn't seem to know at this point: her future.

Art may be a path she pursues in college, but she's undecided on what her major will be -- "Probably something like a blend of science and the humanities, just because I don't want to give anything up," she said -- or where.

She definitely wants to attend a four-year university and is exploring schools in the Midwest and on the East Coast.

Her test scores, along with a high grade-point average, will open the doors to some elite schools.

"I'm still looking to learn more and more," Dai said. "That's why I want to go to college."

jbreer@semissourian.com

(573) 388-3629