CITY FOCUS:

Huntington Beach High School senior Rachel Field was excited when she was told she would be honored by State Supt. of Public Instruction Jack O’Connell at Dodger Stadium, but nowhere near as excited as her long-time Dodgers-fan dad.

“My dad was flipping out,” Rachel said. “‘Free tickets, oh my god!’”

Rachel was honored April 1 along with seven other outstanding students from around Southern California for earning a perfect score on the ACT college entrance exam.

She was given an official Los Angeles Dodgers jersey with “Field” emblazoned across the back and the number 36 — the highest score a student can receive on the ACT. O’Connell awarded Rachel a glass trophy in the shape of California.

It was a strange experience for the honors student to be the center of attention in a stadium full of people.

“It was a little surreal when they’re running around on the field fixing the grass and the players are out warming up around you,” Rachel said.

All that on top of getting the opportunity to meet Dodgers center fielder Andruw Jones was not a bad reward for acing a test.

The ACT is a four-part exam that tests students in math, science, reading comprehension and English. There are 36 possible points in each category, the overall score is a combination of all the scores.

According to ACT Inc., the average exam score is just above 21. Only one in every 4,000 students earns a 36 on the ACT.

Rachel said she had an easier time on the ACT than the SAT, though she did well on that college-prep test too. “I liked it better than the SAT, the ACT had a science section that made it a little easier for me,” she said.

With an avid love for science, Rachel is playing with the idea of becoming an engineer, possibly in the burgeoning field of environmental building.

“I’m pretty passionate about the environment,” she said.

The Dodger Stadium ceremony was a memorable honor for Rachel, but she is no stranger to receiving accolades for her academic prowess.

She is Huntington Beach High School’s 2008 valedictorian with a 4.8 GPA, and she has been accepted to every university she applied to. Rachel now faces the difficult task of choosing between a laundry list of Ivy League schools like Harvard, Yale and Princeton and top California schools like UCLA and Berkeley.

While that may make it sound like Rachel spends all of her time with her face buried in a book, she somehow finds time to participate in multiple extra-curricular activities.

She is a trumpet player for the school jazz band and orchestra, in the National Honor Society, a tennis player and has worked on the yearbook staff.

As a delegate in the school’s Model United Nations, Rachel traveled to Paris for a summit in November.

Nancy Muschetto, Rachel’s guidance counselor, said she has too many activities, classes and honors to list them all on her high school transcript.

“My transcript is missing some of classes because there is literally too much to list,” Rachel said.