At only 12 years old Aakash Ahuja Jr. has taken the SAT, scoring a 710 in the math section, placing him in the 96th nationally representative sample percentile for the section, and a 1110 score overall.
Why did he take the SAT?
“I want to break the limits,” said Ahuja Jr.
Ahuja Jr. recognized his talents at a young age with math. He was self-aware that he was learning the subject faster than his classmates.
He looked where he could to find ways to learn more advanced math — his teachers, parents and outside learning tools.
Every day, Ahuja Jr. practices math for two hours, simply because he loves it.
“I was always working with numbers and calculations ever since I was a kid,” said Ahuja Jr., “and then ever since I’ve been always doing it and every time I do it, that just makes me more interested in math.”
Ahuja Jr. began to wonder where his math skills could take him and how good they actually were. Looking to challenge himself, he enrolled in math competitions nationwide and took the SAT as a seventh grader at Rio Norte Junior High School.
“I wanted to see how good I can do,” said Ahuja Jr. “I was trying to experiment a bit.”
Ahuja Jr. has placed first among seventh and eighth grade at the American Mathematics Competition, scored a 24 out of 25 in the Mathematical Olympiads for Elementary and Middle Schools and is set to fly to Chicago on Saturday to partake in the finals for MathCon finals after scoring in the 97th percentile in the preliminary round.
Last year he won a bronze medal at MathCon and is looking to take home the title of national champion this year.
“I feel very proud of that,” said Ahuja Jr. of his accomplishments. “I know that math is really my thing … I just feel proud of myself that this practice paid off, all the practice I’ve done.”
Looking toward the future, he wants to be able to give his talent of math back to his classmates, the community and country.
He wants to open up his own math club to help struggling students with math.
Further on, he hopes to one day secure admission to the Massachusetts Institute of Technology for computer engineering.
