Young achiever hailed by Ambassador

Ambassador to the United States, Her Excellency Audrey P. Marks has hailed 16-year-old Damien Chang for the perfect mark he scored in the Scholastic Aptitude Test (SAT) for entry to an American college.

In a letter  to the student,  the Ambassador said that Jamaicans everywhere regard his achievement as nothing short of heroic.

Damien, an alumnus of  Hillel Prep and High schools in Kingston and who attends Woodberry Forest School in Madison County, Virginia, in February 2011 became the first Jamaican to obtain a perfect SAT score.

With his perfect 1,600, he eclipsed the previous Jamaican top score in the SAT exams – the 1,570 mark set 15 years ago by Manchester High School student, Romero Heyman.

Ambassador Marks, in the  letter,  expressed “an enormous sense of pride” on behalf of the government and people of Jamaica. “You are continuing a great tradition of excellence, in your unique way holding aloft our flag as you advance with the torch so ably borne by many great Jamaican scholars and other trailblazers in numerous fields of endeavour,” the Ambassador said.

She said Damien’s achievement was all the more remarkable, as he had earned his place “among that most select group to have scored such an amazing academic mark."

“We are immensely proud to learn that you were among only 400 students to hit that mark, of the total 1.5 million students to sit the exam. Your hard work has paid off, and you can take pride in that,”  the Ambassador said.

She said that Damien  is proof of how “we as Jamaicans dare to go head to head with the finest minds and the greatest of talent from anywhere in the world."

The young student  plans to study engineering.

CONTACT: DERRICK A SCOTT

                   JIS INFORMATION ATTACHÉ

                   JAMAICAN  EMBASSY

                   WASHINGTON