postit

I have a 3.98 GPA UW and a lot of ECs. Should I retake the ACT (I got a 33) if I plan on applying to UChicago, Carleton, Grinnell, Brown, and Kenyon? Thanks

skp

If you really want to, you can. But 33 is in the range for these schools, so you should be fine. It's ECs, GPA and other stuff that's as important.

AceClark

I probably wouldn't bother unless you are confident you'd easily be able to score higher. Otherwise, I'd focus on your ECs. Maybe taking the SAT is you haven't already would be more productive?

postit

So I got my writing section back, and I only got an 8. The English/Writing Score was 31. I'm not really sure if I can do better on the cumulative; I was pretty happy with a 33. Is it worth retaking? How much do these schools weight the writing section? thanks.

tmi

Great on the 33-congrats!!! But...retake it if you got an 8 in writing. Seems to me the schools you list do would like to see a better writing score. Hard to say how much it matters but I'm sure with a 33 you can improve on writing. PR has really good essay tips for ACT. It is a different kind of essay than SAT. Remember you only send the ACTs you want to send, unlike SATs where everything gets automatically sent no matter what. Most schools seem to say they do not SUPERSCORE the ACTs though they generally superscore the SATs.