<p>My D took the SAT on Saturday. She had taken the ACT a couple of times and wasn’t satisfied with her scores but time was running short so we had to send the ACT scores to the colleges she applied to. For some reason many people in our area honestly believe that girls do better on the ACT. Even her GC convinced her that the ACT was the way to go. It kept bugging me that her ACT score was not at all an accurate reflection of her grades and so I finally convinced her to just try the SAT. I told her she had nothing to lose since everything was already sent in and if she didn’t like her score the colleges would never even see the report. Anyway, after the test on Saturday, she could not believe how much more she liked it than the ACT. She feels she will have a much better score and said she felt more comfortable with the SAT format than she ever did with the ACT. We can’t wait to see her scores. Of course now we are in a panic wondering if we can still send the new scores at such a late date since all the deadlines have now past? Do any of you know if we can do this? I’m still kicking myself for buying into that ACT nonsense…uggggggg!</p>
<p>“Do any of you know if we can do this?”</p>
<p>Each college is different. You need to either call or check each college’s website to find out if they are still accepting test scores.</p>
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<p>Ask her if she was making any careless errors along the way and was catching them. That is the one critical clue that would tell her she may actually get a good score. The SAT is so subtle that people walk out thinking they’ve “aced” it and are shocked when they get unexpectedly low scores. That means that the the SAT worked its magic and fooled the smart ones (who didn’t read the very last sentence of the math question that asked for 2x, but the student found 1x and it was an answer choice so she bubbled it in right away, in false triumph). The SAT is subtle, devious and tricky. If she was catching careless erros and mis-reads, then she was responding to the subtlety and will be fine. That’s how it catches the smart kids and humbles them. The ACT is much more straight-forward – its just a time-pressure thing on that test.</p>
<p>I wouldn’t get too excited until you see the scores.</p>
<p>Just give her a practice test. Her real score will probably be her practice score +/- 50 points.</p>