Douglasville teen balances football and books to score a perfect 1600 on the SAT
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Douglasville student athlete Korry Sessoms earned a rare perfect 1600 on the SAT, balancing top academics with football as he sets his sights on Yale.
A Georgia student athlete is heading into his senior year carrying a distinction almost no one achieves, a perfect score on the SAT.
According to FOX 5 Atlanta, Korry Sessoms, a 17-year-old at New Manchester High School in Douglasville, notched a flawless 1600 on the college entrance exam, landing him in the top 99-plus percentile.
The accomplishment is exceedingly rare, with fewer than 0.05% of all test takers reaching that mark. Sessoms told the outlet he wasn’t specifically chasing perfection, but wanted to gauge where his skills stood, especially after scoring around 1570 on a practice test as the previous school year wrapped.
What makes the feat even more striking is how he balances it. Sessoms is a wide receiver for the New Manchester Jaguars, and he draws a direct line between the discipline of sports and the classroom.
He even likened his academic grind to the work of returning to the field after tearing his ACL last year. “Football teaches you accountability, consistency and discipline. And that just correlates with studying academics,” he told FOX 5.
For his parents, the achievement carried a deeper resonance. His mother, Walisa Sessoms, spoke movingly about what it means to see her son celebrated rather than merely tolerated. “There is a world where individuals are celebrated and they’re not just tolerated. And to us, that is so important. For him, being a young Black male,” she said, calling the support he receives from both his team and family refreshing in a world where things “can go a different way.” His father, Torry Sessoms, framed it as proof of a lesson he preaches often: “Anything’s possible as long as you put the work in.”
A lover of math and history, Sessoms offered grounded advice to other students, encouraging them to stay locked in and not be discouraged by a single score. As for what’s next, there’s a friendly family tug-of-war brewing. His parents are pulling for Georgia Tech, but Sessoms has his heart set on Yale, where he hopes to study engineering before heading to law school.