High school student receives statistic-shattering score on AP exam
By Orko Manna
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FOLSOM, California (KCRA) — It is safe to say 17-year-old Naysa Bhargava is a whiz kid.
The Vista del Lago High School senior was born and raised in Folsom and has spent her teenage years immersed in academics, extracurriculars and volunteering. Since a young age, she said she’s been into puzzles, and in May 2022, Naysa put her passion for problem-solving to the test, by taking the Advanced Placement Computer Science A exam.
“I was like, ‘I think I did pretty well,'” Naysa said.
What an understatement.
Not only did she get a 5, the highest mark you can get, but she also got a perfect score, meaning every single answer she wrote down was correct.
“I was like, ‘Oh that’s so crazy!’ I told my dad, I was like ‘Oh my god! That’s so crazy,’ so it was pretty shocking,” Naysa said, recalling her reaction when she first got the news.
The College Board, which administers all AP exams, sent a letter to Naysa congratulating her on the achievement. The letter said that out of all the students around the world who took the 2022 AP Computer Science A exam, only 369 got a perfect score. That amounts to just 0.47% of all test takers.
“We applaud your mastery of the content and skills of this AP course and wish you many future successes,” the letter stated.
Still, Naysa is staying humble and crediting this major accomplishment to Vista del Lago High School. She credits the help of her school and her teachers that prepped her and gave her hands-on experience in writing code.
Her parents, on the other hand, believe she deserves every bit of recognition, explaining that she has put in the hours. They especially applauded her ability to focus on her studies while also being president of her school’s UNICEF club, doing Indian classical dance and playing piano.
“Anything, if you do it with dedication and hard work: It’s achievable; you can achieve anything you want,” Naysa’s father Kapil Bhargava said.
Shalini Pandey, Naysa’s mother, added, “We didn’t even know that something like a perfect score existed until she received a letter from the College Board … It was very exciting, very happy, very proud as a parent.”
Naysa still has a full plate senior year at Vista del Lago High School and has AP Government, AP Psychology and AP Environmental Science classes on the agenda. As she begins wrapping up her high school career, she is currently applying to colleges where — you guessed it — she wants to study computer science.
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