Almost all high school students would love to reach the goal that one junior already has. Erin Lanigan earned a perfect score on her ACT.

Lanigan owes some of her success to the SEEK program along with Pamela Creed.

“SEEK helped Erin by providing the materials, structure, and guidance to study for the ACT. All students in test prep take a complete test to begin, then determine what needs the most work. They work on their relative weaknesses by doing extra drills and practice in those areas, and take several practice tests. Erin analyzed what she missed, then studied and practiced the sections that required the most improvement,” Creed, SEEK teacher, said.

Lanigan’s best sections were English and reading and according to Creed her language and communication skills are great and were easily reinforced with review.

But what set Lanigan apart from the other SEEK students that helped her earn her 36? Aside from reading the Princeton Review ACT book practically cover to cover, she began her advanced learning from a very young age. By kindergarten she was reading simple books, then by elementary school she was on the advanced spelling lists and did extra projects throughout school. She tested into the gifted learning program, or EL (enhanced learning), in the last quarter of her fourth grade year and the rest was history. Lanigan believes overall that her abilities are a blessing.

“This intelligence is not my own. It’s such a God-given gift. I work hard, but mostly learning just comes easy to me. I’m also very lucky to have the added bonus of being a good test taker, an area in which some brilliant people are not as fortunate,” Lanigan said.

Though Lanigan’s past has been brilliant, her future is a little less clear. She has endless options with such intelligence but she is unsure where she wants to go to college, and a little foggy about her career as well. Industrial design, architecture, and sound engineering have all been under consideration but all she is sure of is that she’d like to work in creative, technical crossover fields.

Lanigan’s parents aren’t very concerned about her indecision about a college or definite career at this point, she has proven that it is easy for her to excel.

“To score that well on the ACT should give Erin confidence that she can prepare for and accomplish other challenges that she’ll face down the road. The score should also provide her with additional options when she begins to consider colleges,” Steve and Cindy Lanigan collectively said.

Lanigan is not only a brain, she enjoys several extracurricular activities for fun. She is involved in the Categories team, the Out of Hand staff, Coalition, and she attends Club 121 every Thursday morning. In the little spare time that she has she spends it playing piano, writing, reading or going out to get food or coffee, catch movies and go shopping with her friends.