The Curious Case of Cameron Clarke

Two Philadelphia-area high schools have two high-scoring talents, but one's name is barely mentioned

The views expressed in this Op-Ed do not necessarily reflect those of Loop 21.

If you were to walk the streets of Philadelphia lately, you'd probably have a hard time finding a smile. In the sports world, their beloved Eagles finished in last place and Andrew Bynum, the style-challenged, All-Star center the Sixers traded half their team for, has yet to play a basketball game this season because of injury. Citywide, their education system is failing with one of the highest dropout rates in the country. Not to mention that nearly half of the students in city schools can't read or do math at grade level.

Buried under that despair though are two Philly-area high school seniors who are giving the city a glimmer of hope.

Roberts Vaux High School senior Rysheed Jordan has the city buzzing as he is set to decide what college he plans to go to next fall. Jordan is a 6'3, 185-pound point guard who is currently ranked as the 66th best player on ESPN's top 100 high school recruit list. Every time you open the paper to read about him he's scoring 20 or more points a game. USA Today was so impressed with his skills that they produced a customized highlight reel of him passing the ball.

If the NBA didn't set a rule saying that high schoolers have to at least spent one year out of school before becoming eligible, he'd probably make the jump straight to the pros. But since he can't, he's deciding between St. John's University, UCLA or the hometown Temple University.

Information on Jordan's GPA isn't as readily available as his game stats are, but we can say this about him, he's not a man of many words:

[Also Read: Loop 21's 2012 Education Special]

About 35 minutes north, there is another star student known for his high scoring ability.

Cameron Clarke, a senior at Germantown Academy, scored a perfect 2400 on the SAT this year. He is just one of 360 students in the entire country to achieve the feat and one of just two in the Philadelphia area to do so. This score comes on his second time taking the SAT, the first time he took it he scored a just-under-perfect 2190, which still had him ranked ahead of nearly 99 percent of all other test takers.

The only place that Clarke's name appeared initially was in the Philadelphia Inquirer before other outlets aggregated the story on him. In addition to his SAT score, Clarke also writes for the school paper, participates in a math club, tutors other students, is a senator in his school's student government, has run cross country and is also a principal cellist for the Philadelphia Youth Orchestra. Clarke's dream school to attend is Princeton University.

Clarke, according to his parents, is also not a man of many words.

“[Cameron] really didn’t want anyone to know about his score, so he didn’t tell anyone at Germantown Academy about it when he got the result in June," says Clarke's father Peter.

Hell, even in the original news piece on him, Clarke is barely quoted himself.