Karns City freshman scores 1450 on SAT
Dmitri Weckerly didn’t get the score he was shooting for on the SAT, but thankfully, he has a few more years to work his way up to his full potential.
Dmitri, a freshman at Karns City Area Jr./Sr. High School, took the SAT March 8, at the suggestion of his longtime gifted program teacher, Terry Mackrell. After taking a few practice tests, Dmitri finished every question on the real thing but two in the math module.
He scored 1450 out of a possible 1600 — a score impacted by not finishing the two questions, and his general weak spot in the English module.
“I got the score back, it was a Friday, like two weeks after, absolutely I was proud of it. It was much higher than I expected,” Dmitri said. “Mr. Mackrell was pretty proud of me, he said he went to the guidance office after seeing it, and he said I was the highest in the school’s history.”
Even though he made history with his high score, Dmitri said he wants to improve upon it each year until he submits college applications.
“Next school year and the next school year I'll be taking the PSAT as well,” Dmitri said. “I would like to get to 1550 by the end.”
Maureen Weckerly, Dmitri’s mom, said her son has always been a good student, and has been in the gifted program at Karns City Area School District since his elementary school days.
As for his smarts, Weckerly said they mainly came from Dmitri’s penchant for taking the initiative to get ahead in classes.
“He is in a lot of the accelerated courses, and I think the gifted teacher noticed how he self-taught himself,” Weckerly said.
Mackrell, the district’s gifted program coordinator, also said Dmitri is largely self-taught, although he is in precalculus as a freshman. Dmitri is also in Academic Games, which is another opportunity for students to stretch their academic potential, according to Mackrell.
“With the SAT things, he took the initiative to go on and study and take practice exams,” Mackrell said. “He has that drive within him to be his best, and to go above and beyond searching out information and wanting to learn on his own.”
The SAT itself is different now than it was a few years ago, at least the online version is. Dmitri said the test adjusts to a person’s performance in each module, so the questions become more difficult if a student is performing well.
It could have been the adaptive difficulty that led to him getting questions in the math module he couldn’t finish.
“Ever since the online has been instated, the second one changes its difficulty based on how well you did in the first module. They integrated it in 2022,” Dmitri said. “The English section was eating at me.”
Mackrell said the gifted program in the district exists to give students a higher level of learning, so they can push themselves academically and get the support they need.
He said, however, that seeing Dmitri do so well on the SAT on his first try was still surprising.
“I’ve never had a freshman take it and his scores are far superior to juniors or seniors we have taking it,” Mackrell said. “I’m anxious to see how he does in the future.”
Dmitri, too, said he is anxious to get better in subsequent years taking the test. He gave credit to Mackrell for not only encouraging him to take the test, but for giving him the educational support that made his high score possible.
“I just want to give all my thank-yous to Mr. Mackrell, he has helped me so much throughout my academic career,” Dmitri said. “I just want to give him as much thanks as I can.”
