ACT advice and college summer programs/ extracurricular activities

RichInPitt
Wed, 04 Mar 2020 20:37:01 +0000

Duke (TIP) and Johns Hopkins (CTY) have gifted programs that use SAT and ACT scores to qualify. They offer online courses, but I don’t commend them. They also summer courses on college campuses, which I highly recommend. My D has taken Game Theory and Neuroscience, and will be taking Fast-paced High School Physics (Intro 1st yr Physics course in 3 weeks) to take AP Physics next.

Long term ACT gains come from solid coursework at school. Depending on where he is in math, he may have one more year to learn topics that are on the test (or not - it tops out at Algebra 2). Continued reading, writing, grammar studies, etc., will help on the Reading/Writing side.

I wouldn’t bother doing any actual test prep for a while - maybe 6 months before testing. Scores taken up through 8th grad are deleted, but starting next year they stay on his record, somI’d say no more official testing until Junior year. Khan has good prep material (SAT and ACT are very similar these days), and both organizations publish sample tests, which are good practice.

There are several threads at the top of the forum here with prep suggestions, books, tutoring ideas, etc.