36 ACT.... Now what?

mathyone
Mon, 06 Apr 2015 04:06:04 +0000

@dvgbhs, Actually in 2014, 1407 kids scored 36 on the ACT. http://www.act.org/newsroom/data/2014/pdf/profile/National2014.pdf

Also I doubt there is nearly as much overlap in those groups as you assume. Many of those students won’t have a reason to sit for the other test. Of those who do, according to the college board the majority of students who score 800 on a section are not able to reproduce that on a second sitting of the SAT much less a different test. So I would not assume that nearly every student with a perfect score on one test would also be able to achieve that on the other test. The OP’s PSAT score was only 203 and I am skeptical that he would have jumped to a 2400. A lot of students seem to say that one test or the other is easier for them.

“My bet is that he’ll get into HYPS or the like” Quite possibly, but the OP should be aware of the following statistics from the Princeton admissions site: http://admission.princeton.edu/applyingforadmission/admission-statistics
Percent of students accepted by SAT range:
2300-2400 14.8%
Percent of students accepted by GPA:
4.0 9.9%
If you look at the complete tables, clearly better scores and better grades help but even for students in the top categories the odds are low.