I have enjoyed reading through this entire thread and have sat back to just take it all in, but I have a question about the SAT so I figured this was the best place to look for an answer.
S18 is signing up for the Jan SAT and we were not sure if he needs to take the essay part then or not. Is it optional to count the essay score towards the SAT score as a whole, or can just the Math and English scores be submitted. He knows that essay writing is not his strong point and several colleges he is interested in do no require it, so he hates to take that part, do poorly and have it averaged in to or bring down his overall score.
And while I am typing, I also can confess that, like like @snoozn, I consider myself an unpaid researcher an I have thoroughly enjoyed the process of helping find schools that fit my sons interests. And he has thoroughly appreciated it. So it’s a win-win!
Welcome @VaNcBorder - the essay score is separate from the rest of the SAT - e.g., someone could get a perfect SAT score of 1600 and then an essay score of say 7/7/7. The SAT score and the essay score don’t get averaged together.
So, if you are looking at schools that don’t require an essay score, your son can take the SAT without the essay, or (if he wants to try the essay) he can take the SAT with the essay and those schools (that don’t require the essay) wouldn’t count it anyway.
Thank you so much @LMHS73. That is what I was hoping, but I just wanted to be sure! As my son’s list is preliminary and will probably be changing over the next several months, I am sure it will include schools that will require the essay portion, so he will sign up to take it with the January SAT.
Thanks @snoozn ! I’m a regular lurker on both '17 threads and have greatly appreciated and benefited from the collective wisdom there!
Welcome @VaNcBorder ! I’m in the blissful unpaid researcher club as well, my D is so grateful, and really wouldn’t have it any other way (except when I’m bugging her about her preferences!)
My D is also in the SAT/ACT essay :-q camp. ACT is her test, she’s taken it once and the difference between her Eng/Reading scores and her Writing score was something approaching 20 percentile points! It just made no sense. She’s a very English/humanities kid but a timed essay on a random topic in a specific format is just not her strength.
That said, I’m not worried about submitting it. Her E/R scores are strong enough to counter balance, and they will have samples of her writing in the form of essays to look at. Most of her schools so far aren’t looking at the writing/essay score and I’m choosing to be glass-half-full on any others. Besides, she may yet retake and better it! (again going for optimism here! )
Hi - I can’t read through this whole thread, so I apologize if this has been discussed: Has anyone else’s kid receive a completely out-of-whack ACT essay score? My son had extremely high English and reading scores (typical for him, not a fluke). He writes well (As in AP English and history). Yet his essay was scored a 6. I don’t even think he’s capable of writing an essay at that level.
ACT won’t rescore, although I could pay them $40 to have them tell me that it was scanned correctly and read by two scorers, which sounds like a useless exercise. Big contrast with SAT (which my daughter took) where the scanned essay appears in the online report so that it is obvious that it was scanned correctly and probably scored correctly. There seems a real lack of transparency with ACT.
@twinsmama my post above yours, #1923, has my thoughts on my D’s lopsided ACT essay score. She took it in June, and the policy at that time was you could request (and pay for) a rescore. I considered doing that but ultimately didn’t bother for a couple of reasons.
My D wasn’t confident in any way that she’d written a decent essay, and in all practice essay that had been scored in the class she took at school, she hadn’t scored much better (though each time she did one she improved and this score was a reversal of that trend)
Though many people who had taken the new essay early in the year last year had had success with rescores (see the above threads) I noticed a trend as the year wore on that people who took the later tests were having a much lower success rate in getting a better rescore.
However, it looks like from what you are reporting that ACT has changed their policy on allowing people to pay for rescores.
I honestly don’t think these essays really test or show the writing ability of anyone. They require students to respond to the prompt (which could be a topic the student is completely uninterested in or unfamiliar with) in a very specific, formulaic way, and that’s how they are graded. It’s not anything like writing an essay for a test at school, or any other type of writing. It’s the reason I’m not too worried, and the reason I have more respect for colleges that don’t take the essay under consideration during admission. Of all the ridiculous testing these kids have to do, it’s probably the most ridiculous imho.
@suzy100 , Thanks for finding that thread for me. I guess I was searching on the wrong terms. I have read some articles about essay scoring problems, but they all seemed to relate to the older format. @1822mom , They have indeed changed their policy…so I feel like I would send them $40 and they could tell me anything they wanted. I agree wholeheartedly that the whole thing is ridiculous, but my son will probably be applying to schools that require the essay, and I don’t want something stupid like that to hurt him. Oh well, I’m probably obsessing too much…but where else can we obsess about these things?
S got his ACT scores back and I thought they were pretty “meh.” I’ll have to see how the PSAT goes and figure out which test is better for him. Either way he is going to have to do serious prep for the next test or have a smaller list of colleges to choose from.
@twinsmama, my S’s ACT essay was a disaster as well. Like I said, his other scores weren’t impressive, but they weren’t surprising. But his essay was a 7, which I think was 38%. He’s made A’s and B’s in honors and AP English since 9th grade and does well on most writing assignments. Something’s wrong here.
S and D17 both HATED the essays (SAT for D). We’re probably just going to strike any schools that require ACT or SAT essays. :-w
I have been reading lots for about a year now, and the essay doesn’t seem to reflect anything of value about the writer. The grading system seems powerfully flawed, like good writers are penalized? I cannot believe that admissions doesn’t see what I see. I am choosing to ignore it. For better or worse.
@snoozn ,I’m really enjoying this thread ! So relieved that other parents are experiencing some of the same frustrations that I am in regards to their sons/daughters not interested in researching schools. My son took the October ACT with Essay and scored a 35 ! My husband and I were gobsmacked to say the least ! Our son who has ADHD, seems to test really well but his g.p.a. is not great. He is taking really hard classes( AP Chem, AP Calc ab, and APush )etc. and does the best that he can do. So with that in mind, I’ve researched schools that look for high standardized test scores. Our newest list : Baylor University
Lehigh University
University of Scranton
Loyola University Maryland
University of Dayton
Bradley University
Rochester Institute of Technology
Stevens Institute of Technology
University of Alabama at Birmingham
University of Arkansas
Colorado State University- Fort Collins
University of Vermont
University of New Hampshire
University of Nebraska @ Lincoln
North Carolina State University- Raleigh
Miami University- Ohio
We live in the state of California and my son has stated that he wants to experience snow. He’s not interested in any of the UC’s or Cal State schools. He also wants to study Electrical/ Electronic Engineering. Also 2 other things are very important to him, the school has to have a pool( he’s a swimmer) and really good food ! If any body has insight on any of these schools, would love to know what your opinion/ experience has been.
@svcamom - I don’t know know much about the schools on your list (except Lehigh where my sister went. But that was just a few years ago). Make sure you check the numbers to see if schools are affordable before they go on a short list. We are working on a “long list” and we will discuss $$$ before a school is placed on a short list.
@svcamom My only experience is with Stevens Institute. I have a nephew who is currently attending and doing really well. They are fantastic with internship opportunities and I’ve heard good things about how their graduates do well in the job market. Also, great location in Hoboken, and a quick path ride away from Manhattan. Significant gender imbalance; not sure if that matters to him.
@svcamom, congratulations to your son on his scores! Those should open up merit money opportunities at a lot of schools. I am familiar with Miami of Ohio. It’s a beautiful campus, with a fairly preppy vibe and fairly heavy Greek presence. I don’t know how their engineering department is. Would you qualify for FA at some reachier schools? He might like Notre Dame. I know a young man there studying engineering who really likes it.
We have been working on my S18 college list in light of his intended major(s) and his academic profile. He took the ACT as a sophomore and scored a 35. He took the November SAT and scored a1560. He took each only once. He has taken SAT Math I and Math II and scored 800 on both…will take chemistry SAT in June. He has a 4.0 unweighted GPA and maximum rigor. He is a 3-sport varsity letterman (football, soccer, baseball) and is an all-conference kicker/punter and has gotten national recognition. He’d love to play football (and possibly others) in college (D III/Ivy level). He also is 1st chair cello in school orchestra. Academics are first and would sacrifice athletics for academics if that’s what had to happen in order to go to the right school. He literally wants to be a rocket scientist/engineer. He’s doing a research project right now with a Harvard post-doc he met last summer on the birth of planets, which will be something he works on through next summer if not beyond. He really wants to focus on space engineering (aero/astro) with a dual major/minor in astronomy/astrophysics. His list is shorter given his focus on a particular path (and football). However, the chance of admission in any of these schools (except UT) is a crap shoot:
MIT
Stanford
Harvard
Princeton
Caltech
UT Austin
Berkley, Michigan, Georgia Tech are good for major but not sports or financial aid for out of state students
The scary part of the list is the lack of safety schools…really UT, which is a great school/value for what he wants to do and he will be an automatic admit, he just would love to get away from Texas.
This may be the only schools he applies to…many of the other highly selective schools just don’t have the combination of space engineering and astronomy he is looking for. Just wish there was ED with MIT! He would certainly do it.
@KSMom1518 and @suzy100 , @Aida , thanks so much for the info ! As far as FA, we planned ahead and opened a 529 Account when our son was born, and have added to it every year. The other money is coming from a very generous grandmother who has stated that our son" may apply anywhere his heart is" ! We figure that she will pay for the first four years and then we will pay for graduate school.
I’d look at Embry-Riddle as a safety. We were just in Cocoa Beach watching the rocket take off (it was awesome) and Embry Riddle and Nasa people were all over the place at our hotel! (they were wearing lanyards).
I’d also look at the University of Alabama in Huntsville:
"Not surprisingly given Huntsville’s technology-based economy, UAH is known for engineering and science programs, including astrophysics, atmospheric science and aerospace engineering. UAH scientists managed the first “commercial,” non-government rocket programs (Consort and Joust) in the U.S., the first “high-temperature” superconductor was discovered at UAH and the first U.S. experiment flown aboard the Soviet Mir space station was from UAH. UAH is a Space Grant university, and has a history of cooperation with NASA at the Marshall Space Flight Center, and the U.S. Army Aviation and Missile Command at Redstone Arsenal. In conjunction with helping NASA reach its goals, UAH makes NASA’s research and technology available to all of Alabama’s colleges and universities. The National Space Science and Technology Center is on the UAH campus.
The UAH Propulsion Research Center ([PRC]) is a research center that promotes interdisciplinary research opportunities for graduate and undergraduate students. Popular Science cited the PRC as the third “most awesome” college lab in the United States. The PRC was founded by Dr. Clark W. Hawk in 1991 and has since provided support for NASA, the Department of Defense, and the Department of Energy. Research topics explored include air-breathing propulsion, solid, liquid & hybrid propellent combustion, magnetoinertial fusion, electric propulsion, high temperature materials, and space and terrestrial power systems."
@brazos21 - Wow! Your son is “that kid” we all read about from time-to-time. I got dizzy reading all of his accomplishments - congratulations to you both! It’s a shame that even with his stellar record, all of those reach schools might still be a crap shoot for him unless he’s tagged for his athletics or something. You’d better get a couple more safety schools lined-up just in case. His safeties would be reaches for a lot of our kids and he’d likely get tons of merit $ from a lot of these schools.
@LMHS73 - Thanks. I think the best thing about S18 is his modesty. You would never guess his accomplishments if you met him. Our counselors think we should add Cornell (which we will), Penn, and Rice as “safety” schools. We will go to kicking camps at the Ivies this summer (did it last summer and already have some interest from several). Clearly, despite his academic accomplishments, he will need to have a hook…at this point it is football and the space engineering/astronomy track which is less popular. I guess we will all get to know each other on this thread as the next 12 months play out. Next step PSAT…good luck to all!
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