Sweet 1,600 : Two Area High School Students Are Among a Handful in the Nation Who Get Perfect SAT Scores

Being perfect is no big deal. At least that’s what high school students Jennifer Koo, 16, and Dale Shuger, 17, said after learning that they had scored a flawless 1,600 points on the Scholastic Assessment Test, the nation’s premier college placement exam.

“I’m just thrilled . . . but there are a lot of people I know who are just brilliant and so intelligent and responsible and they bombed the test,” Koo said Tuesday in an interview at the Math and Science Magnet School at Van Nuys High School, where she is a junior.

“I guess that the SAT is necessary, but I don’t think it should be such a big deal,” Koo said.

“The test is stupid, and it doesn’t really measure anything important,” echoed Shuger, a part-time film actress and junior at El Camino Real High School in Woodland Hills, in a separate interview.

But of the approximately 3.2 million students who took the test in the United States, only about 15 of them aced both the 800-point verbal and 800-point math elements of the exam, said Van Nuys principal Bob Sharf.

Neither of the two expected to do so well. They made no special preparations for the test, which they took in April, because they knew they would have a second chance to take it and improve their scores if they did poorly.

“The results came on Friday in a standard envelope and I saw it and it was, like, ‘Oh, I got a 1,600,’ ” Koo said. “It took a while for me to say ‘Wow! I got a 1,600!’ ”

Shuger said that although the test was challenging, she had “more than enough time at the end of each section to review my work.”

The SAT, which strikes fear in the hearts of the multitudes of college-bound students who take it each year, is made up of six separate math and language tests, administered over three hours. The scores are used by colleges across the nation to determine whether applicants will be admitted, and whether they are eligible for scholarships.

Last year the SAT was revamped to better reflect student abilities by its designer, Educational Testing Service of Princeton, N.J., after suffering criticism that results were unfairly biased against minorities and women.

Both Shuger and Koo said they have not decided which college they will attend, but Shuger acknowledges that her high score may mean she can get into virtually any school she wants.

“I feel a little more relaxed,” she said.

Shuger also earned accolades last November when she won a gold medal as the individual high scorer at the Los Angeles Unified School District Academic Decathlon.

In addition to her heavy academic load, which includes three Advanced Placement classes, Shuger is working as an actress in an independent film tentatively titled “Female Perversion,” starring Frances Fisher, Amy Madigan and Tilda Swinton. The 4-foot 10-inch high school junior plays the part of a 13-year-old girl.

Koo also maintains a busy academic and social life. She is the opinion editor of the Van Nuys High School newspaper, plays piano and does volunteer work at a Buddhist temple.

Since the announcement of her perfect score, a wave of media attention has left Koo struggling to keep her head above water while juggling her studies.

“I haven’t been in class all day,” she said after giving five interviews, and just before being invited to appear on “The Late Late Show With Tom Snyder.”