Buchholz High School junior David Jia has achieved mathematical perfection.

Officials with the American Mathematics Contest (AMC) have announced that Jia was one of 26 students worldwide to earn a perfect score on the AMC 12, the rigorous exam open to all high school students. More than 126,000 students overall took the AMC 12.

“I was just overjoyed,” said Jia about finding out he’d earned a perfect score. “I had practiced a lot, and I was really happy the practice paid off.”

The American Mathematic Contest, which was established in 1950, is designed to spur interest in math and develop the talent of the students who participate. “A special purpose of the (test) is to help identify those few students with truly exceptional mathematics talent,” says the official contest website. Students who do well in the contest are highly sought after by the nation’s most prestigious colleges and universities.

As a result of his outstanding performance on the extremely rigorous AMC test, Jia has qualified to participate in the even more challenging American Invitational Mathematics Examination (AIME) later this month. Sixteen other Buchholz students also scored in the top 5% of the AMC, meaning they too qualified for the AIME, which is an even more challenging test. Those who make top scores on both tests are then invited to participate in a nine-hour, six-problem session of proofs known as the United States of America Mathematic Olympiad. Ultimately the goal is to select the six members of this year’s US Mathematics Team.

“These are obscenely hard tests,” said Buchholz math teacher Will Frazer. “That third test is the kind of stuff you do if you’re a math major in college.”

While most students would find the thought of such intensive (and lengthy) mathematics competitions daunting, Jia says he enjoys the challenge.

“I like it because it’s creative,” said Jia. “It’s testing how you can solve problems instead of how much information you have acquired.”

Frazer says that kind of challenge plays to Jia’s strengths.

“Critical thinking skills really come out in this test,” he said. “David’s the kind of guy who can see something that he hasn’t seen before and intuitively use what he knows to solve it. He has the gift.”