Help: timing issues (and not enough time to solve issue!)

Test Preparation
1

Dear all,

I’m from the UK and applying to Claremont McKenna, U-Penn, Princeton, Dartmouth, and University of Chicago (I’m only looking at top-tier schools in US given the high tuition fees and the fact that I’ll, almost definitely, have offers from top UK universities and quite possibly Oxford).

My application is strong with 12 A* GCSE (and equivalent) , and AAA*A A level predictions which translate roughly to a perfect GPA (as per the Harvard documents released in the court case) and roughly 8 5’s in AP’s (I’m guessing this based off what qualifies for college credit and the fact that the syllabus covered in 2 AP’s roughly equals to 1 A level). After a lot of time planning and thinking, I finally thought of an original idea for CA essay; its well written and conveys a ‘unique voice’ - teachers and college consultants have said it is definitely strong. My supplements come across well-researched and mature (quite similar to UCAS PS only showing knowledge of the universities too). ECs show a strong passion and dedication to Economics and also show a lot of demonstrated leadership and ability to work as a team (plus a bit of sport, volunteering, prestige awards, internships …). Both of my teacher recs have been assured to be among the strongest they’ve written and show my strong attitude towards learning (although I, of course, can’t read them) (one was also written by a teacher who also holds an important role in the school’s upper management). So essentially it is a strong application…

…with the exception of my 31 ACT.

U of C allows international applicants to apply with A level predicted grades in lieu of test scores so I’d consider myself a strong applicant there, however, CMC, Penn, Dartmouth, and Princeton do of course require standardized testing and thus, the quality of my application has fallen significantly.

Originally I thought that most people don’t finish any sections of the test (as I thought it was a measure of how well you work against the clock and certainly not intelligence given that the questions themselves really are not difficult), and that my test score was low because I didn’t prepare adequately for it with practice tests (I did maybe 2/3 practices before it).

Recently, upon struggling with time in some internal school exams (when no one else did), my form tutor recommended that I see our school’s learning support department to see if there was a possibility that I had a learning difficulty. From the initial diagnosis, they said they were almost certain I had a learning difficulty that would entitle me to extra time in UK exams and therefore in US exams (including standardized testing) too.

The issue is that seeing an educational psychologist and getting a formal diagnosis will take quite a long time and College Board (I plan on switching to the SAT) says that it takes up to 7 weeks for the request to process - so essentially it will be impossible for me to get these accommodations through normal channels for the December test.

I hope to get a score in the 75th percentile of Princeton/ Penn i.e. a 1550 SAT (which given my score without extra time, the scores of others at my school who do get extra time, and generally being clever, I think is certainly possible)

I think I have several choices and was hoping people could share their advice on how I should proceed:

(1) Take December SAT (which is slightly less time pressured than ACT) without accommodations - work very hard through December to try and make up for my learning and timing difficulty (Risky and score would be sent straight to schools)

(2) Try and get the College Board to give me the extra time provision in the short space of time maybe anyone has experience in doing this?

(3) Explain my situation to the admissions officers and hope they understand and then simply neglect my score and focus on the important parts of my application (or even maybe allow me to send in late scores from January/ February when I would have extra time provision?) (If pursuing this strategy then should I take Dec SAT as well or not?) (Risk in admissions officers treating my learning and timing difficulty as a negative which they could use to justify a rejection)

Thank you in advance for any help/ advice you may be able to give!

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Essentialy, do admissions officers and holistic admissions processes in top schools look seek to find genuinely intelligent and intellectualy curious people (who would thrive in their school) and therefore be willing to overlook a rather useless in my case metric, or people who can essentially color in boxes (i.e. the classic “Good standardised test, good subject tests, good GPA, Honors society, Model UN, Student Gov’t, essay about overcoming some form of hardship” type applicant)

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quote Try and get the College Board to give me the extra time provision in the short space of time maybe anyone has experience in doing this?

[/quote]

Unless you have a documented disability this will not happen.

Admission at top US schools is holistic. There are no minimum cutoffs like in many other countries. A less than outstanding ACT will not automatically exclude you.

4

Thank you. If I’m able to see an Educational Psycholohist in the next week or so and have documentation in 2 weeks at most, then do you think College board may be able to arrange it 2.5 weeks before the test, as opposed to 7?

Thanks.

5

Psychologist **^

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Waht testing disability are you claiming?

7

Have you done any practice SAT tests? As you say, it is less fast-paced than the ACT and you may do fine without the accommodations.

I doubt that the College Board will make an exception to its 7 week decision window to only 2.5 weeks. Give it a try if it turns out you have a documentable learning disability but keep your expectations low.

A 31 is not a terrible score, although low for your target schools.

8

My youngest son has documented LD’s since elementary school (dyslexia, dysgraphia, dyscalculia and a visual issue). He still wasn’t able to get his accommodations in a faster fashion even though there was a lengthy history of their existence. In fact, he was originally denied accommodations on the ACT and scored a 19 composite. When I investigated, it turned out that the HS has not categorized his LD’s in the manner ACT wants (in our area, students have really only begun taking the ACT in large numbers in the past 5 - 8 years). I filed an appeal and the accommodations were granted.

College Board granted the accommodation for the SAT easily but only because he had them for the PSAT and AP exams.

Point is - I don’t know that someone who is a senior who has never been evaluated for an LD before is even going to get accommodations. Certainly, I would not expect CB to expedite the process for one person when there are multiple people presumably waiting their turns in the queue.

Last note, and this is something I told my kids, 2 or 3 practice tests just isn’t enough. Sign up for the question of the day, study vocab in your spare time, etc.

Good luck.

9

Honestly, I don’t know exactly - the person in the learning support department just did a simple 1.5-hour evaluative test and said that results in three of the sections (of five) highlighted a learning difficulty, but that an educational psychologist would be required to do a formal analysis and determine the exact nature of the disability.

10

Thank you - I haven’t tried one under timed conditions, no (been focusing on Oxford TSA so far). Thanks yes that’s what I thought… will try calling them (and will keep my expectations low…).

And yes, probably around or just under 25 percentile (ie scores reserved for big legacies, big donors, recruited athletes) - hence why I’m hoping to get it overlooked/ find some other better alternative.

And is emailing an admissions officer asking for consideration of this something that would help in the score being overlooked or is it giving them a reason to reject?

11

Do not do this, it will only bring additional attention to your score and without the benefit of the AO seeing the rest of your very strong application components.

12

[quote]
Do not do this, it will only bring additional attention to your score and without the benefit of the AO seeing the rest of your very strong application components. [\quote]

Okay thanks a lot - will avoid doing so!

13

[quote]
My youngest son has documented LD’s since elementary school (dyslexia, dysgraphia, dyscalculia and a visual issue). He still wasn’t able to get his accommodations in a faster fashion even though there was a lengthy history of their existence. In fact, he was originally denied accommodations on the ACT and scored a 19 composite. When I investigated, it turned out that the HS has not categorized his LD’s in the manner ACT wants (in our area, students have really only begun taking the ACT in large numbers in the past 5 - 8 years). I filed an appeal and the accommodations were granted.

College Board granted the accommodation for the SAT easily but only because he had them for the PSAT and AP exams.

Point is - I don’t know that someone who is a senior who has never been evaluated for an LD before is even going to get accommodations. Certainly, I would not expect CB to expedite the process for one person when there are multiple people presumably waiting their turns in the queue.

Last note, and this is something I told my kids, 2 or 3 practice tests just isn’t enough. Sign up for the question of the day, study vocab in your spare time, etc.

Good luck.

[quote]

Thanks - yes I just always performed well in school so never thought it could be an issue and so never got tested.

For my GCSE exams, I was given typing provision for the typing heavy exams (ie. English literature, English language, Geography, and Ethics and Philosophy) which allowed me to work faster, and the exams were generally very easy, so timing was never an issue.

This year, doing much more difficult papers which require a lot more thought led to me struggling with time (although less so in the subjects I type), upon which I was recommended to see learning support.

Thanks for your insights - I think I’ll just have to ultra-prep for December SAT and hope the less time pressured nature of it leads to me performing better.

14

Sorry ^, ^^: I’m failing with learning how to quote!