Collegiate Academy, McDowell students receive perfect scores on AP exams

Wherever Sahil Jain and Christopher Zhou attend college, they already have a pretty good indication that they'll be successful at studying economics and medicine, respectively.

Jain, 16, a senior at Erie's Northwest Pennsylvania Collegiate Academy, received a perfect score on the Advanced Placement Microeconomics Exam. Zhou, 17, a senior at McDowell High School in Millcreek Township, received a perfect score in AP Research.

"I was excited," Jain said about hearing last month of his perfect score. "It just tells me I'm pretty good at economics ... and that I'll be successful if I go into economics."

Zhou said, "I was really excited and a little happy and a bit surprised. It was really cool."

He was one of only 306 students worldwide to score perfectly in research. Only about 1% of all AP Research students achieved a perfect score, said Zhou's teacher at McDowell, Rob Hodgson.

Jain was one of only 49 students to earn every point possible on the AP Macroeconomics Exam, according to a statement from the Erie School District. Jain and his macroeconomics teacher, Jeff Weiss, said about 135,000 students took the test this year.

Trevor Packer, head of the Advanced Placement Program, said in a news release from the Erie School District that “AP courses and exams are college-level, requiring great focus and persistence among participating students.”

Jain said in his first two years of high school he was interested in pursuing a career in medicine. After hearing his dad and his dad's friend talk about the stock market, he signed up in his junior year for Weiss' AP macroeconomics class to help explore what he wanted to do in the future.

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Tackling macroeconomics

"It's the big-picture view of a market economy," Weiss said in explaining macroeconomics, which considers factors such as inflation and unemployment. His class, which usually has 15 to 20 students, uses a college-level textbook.

"I liked it," Jain said. "It's one of my favorite classes."

Weiss said that Jain's performance in class led the teacher to believe the student would do well on the test. He said he was "terribly excited" for Jain to receive a perfect score.

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Jain said he learned everything he needed to know about macroeconomics to take the AP exam at the end of his junior year.

"It was pretty easy," he said about the two-hour test, admitting he was done in half that time. "It wasn't terrible. I definitely studied for it a lot."

Depending on which college he attends, Jain could receive credits for passing the exam.

"My dream school is Wharton (School of the University of Pennsylvania)," he said. He's not sure if he'll major in finance or economics but said AP macroeconomics definitely influenced his future plans.

Jain is the son of Pavan and Nirmala Jain of Millcreek Township and the younger brother of Tia Jain, a Collegiate Academy graduate.

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Doing the research

Zhou's path to perfection was slightly different. He said that rather than an actual test, he wrote a 4,000- to 5,000-word paper and gave a 20-minute presentation with a 5-minute oral defense in the spring of his junior year.

His paper was titled "A Computational Fluid Dynamic Analysis on the Hemodynamics of the Carotid Artery Bifurcation."

Zhou said it wasn't as complicated as the tile makes it sound. The carotid arteries, which are found in the neck and supply blood to the brain, are prone to plaque buildup that leads to complications such as stroke, he said. He looked at a different way of analyzing blood flow and plaque buildup.

He said he wanted to research something related to the medical field and had done an internship at a local hospital that included the cardiac section. He also credited his dad — a professor at Penn State Behrend who uses simulation programs — with inspiring him.

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Part of the appeal of taking the AP class, Zhou said, was that he got to choose what he wanted to research.

"AP Research allows you go to and learn about what you want to learn," he said.

Hodgson said AP Research gives students the chance to dictate their own learning.

"It's an incredibly impressive accomplishment," he said about Zhou's score.

Zhou wants to get on a premedical track at college, although he hasn't decided which one. He said he's considering Ivy League schools and that would be followed by medical school.

He is the son of Jun Zhou and Sujie Zhang of Millcreek and the older brother of Caleb Zhou, a student at Millcreek's Walnut Creek Middle School.

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Dana Massing can be reached at dmassing@timesnews.com. Follow her on Twitter @ETNmassing.

This article originally appeared on Erie Times-News: Collegiate Academy, McDowell students earn perfect scores on AP exams