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For most people that's pretty easy. Quick, now name at least one student who has recently aced his or her SAT or ACT tests. Or a high schooler who has recently aced at least several of the Advanced Placement tests. Okay, chances are unless the student is your child, you can't. I couldn't either, till I recently heard of this true super-star in the middle pages of my newspaper. (What this says about our culture -- that we can't answer this but most of us know of Blake, Jordin, Clay, Fantasia, Kelly and all the rest -- speaks for itself, of course.) His name is Allen Lin, and while I'm not sure if Simon would find it worth complimenting, he certainly has a brain for academics worth idolizing. Even that's a severe understatement, in fact, as what Lin achieved was a 1 in 9.2 billion feat: he aced all 13 Advanced Placement tests that he took. If a student passes an Advanced Placement test with at least a score of 3, many colleges will accept it for college credit. Bright students across the country may typically take one, three, or five such exams during the course of high school, and they study as hard to pass it as they do for the SAT or ACT college entrance exams. Lin took 13 Advanced Placement tests and scored a perfect 5 on ALL of them. "In 37 years of education, I've never seen a kid with a mind like this," said the interim principal at Holmdel High in Holmdel, New Jersey, which Lin attends. "He is so exceptional, so self-driven. He learns for the love of learning." Yeah yeah, okay. But how well could he belt out a Bee Gees tune? -- Brian Vaszily
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