This study compared the employment, extracurricular participation, and family structure status of students from low socioeconomic families that achieved state-approved benchmarks on ACT reading and mathematics tests to those that did not achieve the benchmarks. Free and reduced lunch eligibility was used to determine SES. Participants included 211 high school seniors from a large, rural southeastern high school. Eighty five of the participants met the low SES criterion and were the study's primary focus. The study found that at-risk students from low SES families that met ACT reading and mathematics benchmarks were more likely to participate in extracurricular activities than students that did not meet this benchmark. Unexpectedly, students who met the reading benchmark were statistically less likely to have both parents employed. Student employment status and family structure were not statistically associated with ACT performance. Implications and areas for future study are discussed.