The Kid Who Aced His SAT

Nearly 1.5 million kids sat down last year, palms sweating, number two pencils in hand, to determine when a train leaving Cleveland at 45 miles per hour would pass a horse galloping toward Chicago at 15 miles per hour. Most of those 1.5 million will do just fine, get at least some schooling beyond high school, and become productive members of society. But only a handful—238 to be exact, according to test prep giant Kaplan—got a perfect score on their SAT. Lakeside junior Brian Reiser was one of the few.

"I'm definitely going to go to college, so in that respect, getting a good score on the SAT is quite useful," Reiser says. "It was also kind of, like, a personal goal."

Lakeside is an upper-crust prep school that caters to the Gateses, Allens, Nordstroms, and McCaws of Seattle (as well as the Fefers, Millers, and Bergers). There, elite higher ed isn't just a goal, it's an expectation, and annual tuition tops $22,000.

But Reiser says he doesn't know exactly what he wants out of the college experience. "It's really the discovery phase at this point," he says. The French-speaking Reiser adds that his interests veer toward math and finance.

In addition to his top-notch high school, Reiser ponied up for tutoring from Kaplan. Private programs such as this start at $2,399, says tutoring director Kate Newby. But unlike many kids, who are there at the behest of motivated parents, Reiser's enrollment in the program was his own idea, says Newby, adding that "he's a pretty impressive kid." Kaplan guarantees a score higher than that on the assessment students take before beginning prep work with the company, but they certainly don't guarantee any perfect scores, she adds. During the 2007 test cycle, Reiser and one other Kaplan enrollee in Massachusetts earned the only perfect scores.

While his future may be only beginning to unfold, one thing is certain: A lot of trees will give their lives for the mountain of material bound for Reiser's mailbox as every institute of higher learning with a recruiting budget tries to woo him to its hallowed halls.