MC student leaps to elite group with perfect SAT

Monique Wolfe is the first to admit she found it difficult to find time to study for her SAT.

Although the Mt. Carmel High School junior bought a preparation manual a month before she took the exam in December, she only got two weeks’ worth of practice.

“I was supposed to start studying about a month before the test and I went to Hawaii for Thanksgiving break,” Wolfe said. “I took it with me and I read some of it on the plane, but (Hawaii) was a little bit of a distracting place to work.”

Distraction or not, the SAT Reasoning Test was no match for the 16-year-old Rancho Penasquitos resident, who went to Sunset Hills Elementary School and Black Mountain Middle School.

Of the 1.47 million students who took the college entrance exam throughout the country last year, Wolfe was one of 238 who got a perfect score of 2400.

According to figures from the College Board, the organization that administers the college entrance exam, 43 students with perfect scores were from California.

The 2400 maximum score reflects changes made to the iconic high school test, which had a previous maximum score of 1600.

The version of the test introduced in March 2005 added a writing section to the existing math and language art sections.

Wolfe first found out about her score during the winter break.

She said that in her mind, the best case scenario was a score in the 2300s.

“I thought it could be a computer glitch,” Wolfe said of her score. “I thought, are they joking?”

The feat may not be as surprising to Nori Hepler, who has witnessed Wolfe’s class work firsthand.

Hepler, who taught Wolfe’s Advance Placement chemistry class last year, said Wolfe is the first of her students to get a perfect score.

“She just seems to have a talent for understanding the big picture of things, rather than getting bogged down by the little details,” Hepler said.

During the exam, Wolfe was confident about the essay topic, which asked her to write about optimism.

But still, her focus remained on a less-than-ideal situation.

“The part I most clearly remember is having to omit a math question because I didn’t have enough time to figure it out,” Wolfe said.

Her mother, Diane, said her daughter has always been able to learn things easily.

“When she could barely talk she already knew the alphabet,” she said. “She would go through the alphabet song and understood ‘A’ was a figure, not just a song. She went from that to recognizing words and reading before she entered pre-school.”

Wolfe said she thinks the score will help “open doors and get her into a university” that will allow the high schooler to pursue her passions.

Hepler, meanwhile, said she would not be surprised if Monique gets a full scholarship to the school of her choice.

Monique is the youngest of four children, including a sister who is an attorney and a brother with a doctorate in psychology.

Her other sister, Nicole, is a senior at Mt. Carmel who is going to Yale next year. Both were on the Mt. Carmel varsity softball team last year.

Wolfe is uncertain if she will continue on the team, since the schedule may conflict with another passion: competing in horse jump shows, something she started doing in the summer of 2005.

She owns two horses whose care she says is almost a full-time job.

But, she adds, it’s worth it.

“I love horseback riding,” she said. “It’s nice because it’s so different from school. I can go out and ride and it doesn’t matter how my day was or how I did on any test.”

Wolfe’s course load includes five Advance Placement classes: physics, biology, U.S. history, English and first-year calculus. Her only elective class is orchestra, where she plays the cello.

It’s a lot of homework, says Wolfe, who adds that she spends several hours a day during weekdays and a whole afternoon on the weekends.

As far as future plans go, Wolfe hasn’t really thought about what college she wants to attend. She plans to focus on that next summer.

Wolfe said she’s interested in science, particularly chemistry, and thinks she might want to pursue a science career. Last year, she scored a perfect 800 on an SAT subject test.

“I like the process of scientific inquiry and setting up experiments to find something out,” she said.