My son will be a senior this fall. He took the May SAT and got a 1470 without studying. He wants to break 1500 so is committed to studying for the August test. Not sure if he should also take the ACT this July. He is not looking at Ivy level schools but some may be competitive top 50-although looking at the ones he is interested in it seems the 1470 would be more than adequate. Thoughts?
If he is not looking at the most elite schools and he already did well on the SAT there’s no reason for him to take both tests. With studying his 1470 will go up and you don’t need high scores on both tests for admission anywhere.
My son was in the exact predicament last year but he got the 1470 on his second try with some prep. He was ready to take it again and I thought it was silly. He talked to his GC who gave him some good advice. She said I’m not going to tell you what you should do or try to predict whether a1500+ will make a difference. She said you should take the test again if you feel like you’ll regret not doing so someday. That made sense to us. In the end, by that time the June test was full (the infamous one from last year) and he was going to be in camp for the August one so we just took the 1470 and prayed it was enough. He will be attending Emory in the fall which he got into ED.
If he will study, then for sure have a go at the July ACT AND the August SAT. There is no guarantee he improves greatly and the fact he already wasted his first test by not studying and his college apps open in August, means he should optimize his timeline. Early complete applications to rolling schools ED/EA etc means getting those test scores done in as far as you can. 1470 is not “more than adequate” for competitive programs in competitive schools, chuck CS or engineering in the mix and the test score ranges shift.
Has your son tried a practice ACT? Some students do better on one format than the other. There are free practice tests and he can try it and see his baseline. It’s it’s high, sure try the actual test. If it’s not, I would stick with the SAT since that is the structure which is familiar. July is only a month away.
The only reason to take the ACT would be if he felt like he needed a better score and couldn’t do better on the SAT and wanted to try a different format. My kid liked the SAT format and wasn’t open to exploring the ACT format. He was also willing to base his college list on the scores he had rather than trying to change his scores to accommodate his list.
The ACT is probably the more “learnable” of the 2 in that it requires that you work fast, so practice can pay off. In your timeframe, which is short, I’d stick with the SAT.
What possible major and how’s the SAT break down?
And how does he match what his targets look for, other than test scores? Sometimes, the focus on scores misses the rest of what makes a kid a match. Or not.
You haven’t mentioned which major or which specific schools your son is looking at, so the info is incomplete as to whether your son needs to take the test again. For CS and EE at a Top 30 school (use rankings from IvyAchievement or CSRankings), which many are public schools, you will need a score in the ACT 34/SAT 1510-1540 range just to be in the 50th percentile, as an example.
I’d suggest giving the ACT a whirl. Try a practice test and see if he’s attuned to it. If you have both ACT and SAT, can just send better of the two.
The standard advice is to take an actual sample ACT test under test conditions, use the official concordance to compare scores, factor in which test felt more comfortable/aligned with the student’s thinking, and go with that one.
Given that the deadline to register for the July ACT, with late fee, is about 24 hours away, that might be a challenge. Does he have tomorrow free?
The tests have converged enough that it might we worth doing the comparison when available and then signing up for the September ACT, studying for both over the summer, if the ACT looks like a reasonable alternative.