PINELLAS COUNTY, Fla. — A Pinellas County high school junior is now in the 1% of millions of people who take the college entrance exam after he got a perfect score.

What You Need To Know

  •  The SAT is an entrance exam used by most colleges and universities

  •  The PSAT or the Preliminary Scholastic Aptitude Test is taken to prepare for the SAT and to qualify for scholarships

  • Approximately 0.07% of students (7 in 10,000) who take the SAT achieve a perfect score; since roughly 1.7 million people take the test each year, that comes out to around 1,000 people who score a perfect 1600, according to Amikka Learning

Grayson Burns, 17, is a junior at Largo High School. He said he studied, did practice tests and then took the PSAT, and he got a perfect score. When it was time for the SATs, he said he did the same things to prepare and to his surprise, the same thing happened.

“I got a 1520 out of 1520 points, and the following month in November, I took the SAT and got a 1600 out of 1600,” Burns said.

Even with all of the studying and preparation, he said that the high score still came as a surprise.

“It’s still unbelievable," he said. "I never really thought of myself as that person who is in the top one percent, and I still don’t really. I won’t deny there was a lot of prep and talent to getting the score, but I do believe there was some luck involved with the type of questions that matched up to my skillset.”

His mom, Tracy Ellis, said she couldn’t be more proud.

“He just loves math. He does math for fun. He did calculus ahead of time. he doesn’t get that from me,” she said. “He’s just always been very focused on the things he loves and lucky for me, he loves learning.”

Grayson wants to major in either computer science or engineering. He still has one more year of high school but he’s already dreaming of attending Stanford University. His mother is hoping he chooses a school a little closer to home, like the University of Florida, where his older brother attends.