I took the SAT in March 2015 and got a 2190, which I was fine with but I went ahead and took the April ACT as well. However, my mistake was in not removing the four colleges from the free report system, so now I am worried that the ACT scores I sent won’t be as good as my SAT score. Will this impact me if I didn’t get roughly equivalent on my ACT to my SAT? I’m worried about sending in a low ACT score compared to SAT. The colleges I sent to were all UC’s and I haven’t seen my ACT scores yet.
Any help/input is really appreciated; I don’t want to be worrying about it during AP week.
Many of the most selective colleges request all scores. The best response to that is to be honest and send them, so it is possible that you saved yourself some money by doing this instead of sending them later.
Some colleges look at all scores and some superscore. For colleges that superscore, they are likely to use which ever one is better.
My guess is that if a college considers all scores, then there is potential for a lower score to be bothersome, but I also think that colleges recognize that one test on one day isn’t something to consider on its own, and will look at it in context of everything that you send them. Also it is not unusual for someone to do better on one type of test than the other. Colleges that superscore may not be concerned about a lower score.
In the grand scheme of things, I think this is not something that will have a major impact on your admissions. If you are applying to the most selective colleges, then admission chances are low for anyone. For other colleges, I think that they will look favorably on that 2190.
I am not an admissions officer, but from learning about the process, I think this is how scores fit in.
@Pennylane2011 Thank you for the reply! I actually just received my ACT scores today and unexpectedly did a lot better!
That’s great! Congratulations.
Just to make sure any future readers don’t have the wrong impression, VERY few schools require you to send all scores. Stanford comes to mind. Even Yale only requires you send all scores of one OR the other. http://admissions.yale.edu/faq/standardized-testing#t186n1779 Check your schools of interest to see.
Good point, thank you. It is always good to check on the school’s requirements.