Being shut out is a REAL possibility for a student who’s ORM and low income.
And there’s nothing you can do to avoid that, because what matters to elite universities isn’t in your hands. You’re not ranked based on scores, but on various institutional priorities.
What IS in your hands is applying to affordable safeties and matches.
(In fact most elite universities have zero interest in a perfect score. It counts for university of Alabama and similar. BTW, a perfect ACT is relatively easier to get than a perfect SAT, so if that’s your father’s goal, take the ACT and as a bonus it’d give you a guaranteed full ride at UAlabama if you’re shut out and need to get out.
Just remember it’ll matter very little to elite universities. Vanderbilt cares but other than that… plus, if you apply through Questbridge, it’ll validate your general academic background. All Questbridge applicants are top students.
Lots of Asian parents advocate test prep-> test scores so good scores are not even that distinguishing.
Here if you meet the threshold, +10, +30…doesn’t matter whereas in China +0.1 may make a difference!)