Shawnee Mission South junior Amelia Mullin says a bit of sibling rivalry contributed to her recent perfect performance on the ACT.

Mullin had taken the test earlier this school year and scored an impressive 34 — which is what her older sister Kathleen, now a student at the Illinois Institute of Technology, got when she took it a few years ago.

“I didn’t really study before the first time, so I thought I wonder if I could up my score,” Mullin said. “Plus there’s always a little competition with my sister. I wanted to see if I could get a better score than her.”

But when she sat for the exam in February, she didn’t walk out thinking she’d done any better than the first time.

“I didn’t think I’d gotten a higher score,” she said. “It’s pretty challenging. I’m more of a STEM person, so the reading and writing parts are the hardest for me.”

A few weeks later, though, she was in her living room and went online to check out how she’d done. It turned out she’d gotten a perfect 36.

“I gave a little scream,” she recalls. “My mom was in there and just said, ‘That’s unbelievable.'”

Mullin said she’s considering civil or mechanical engineering as a major for college, and it currently narrowing the list of schools she wants to apply to.