When Desert Sunrise High School junior Mason McKillop pulled up his ACT score on his phone, he thought something had gone wrong.
“When I first pulled it up … I thought it was like an example of what scores look like,” Mason said. “I thought, ‘Oh, that’s not my score,’ and tried to pull it up again and it was the exact same. I thought something was broken.”
The score was real: a perfect 36.
Mason and his twin brother, Conor, have distinguished themselves at Desert Sunrise for their academic success, particularly in STEM subjects and competitive mathematics. The 17-year-old Rancho El Dorado residents are heavily involved in the school’s Math Club, volunteer through the Maricopa Food Pantry and tutor students online through the platform UPchieve.
“A lot of the students on their platform are from underserved areas,” Mason said of tutoring. “I feel like explaining concepts the way I understand them, as a student myself, helps others understand them.”
The twins said their interest in STEM started early, particularly after joining gifted classes in elementary school that focused on logic puzzles and hands-on learning.
“I think it was that fourth grade teacher,” Conor said. “It was the first time in school that I was actually challenged.”
Their mother, Brooke Reno, said she noticed their academic strengths early on.
“[It was] when I showed them one time how to do an algebra problem, and then they knew it,” she said. “They were in third or fourth grade … they just comprehend things so quickly.”
The brothers said they continue pushing each other academically through math competitions, tutoring and leadership in Math Club, where Mason serves as president. The club competes against schools across the county and state, and Mason recently won a math competition at Central Arizona College.
“We’ve always felt [a] standard to perform high,” Mason said. “Especially being in classes with other advanced students, there’s a lot of competition within them.”
Outside academics, the twins said they enjoy technology and engineering projects, including taking apart old laptops and electronics to better understand how they work and programming computers.
“I think I’ve always had an interest in how and why things work,” Conor said.
They still have another year before selecting a school, but the twins said they hope to pursue careers in aerospace, engineering or biotechnology after graduation, with dream schools including MIT, Rice University and Johns Hopkins.
