Ok, where are my ACT people?? Just got D’s school day ACT back. If you recall, it was kind of a disaster with technical difficulties that resulted in nearly 9 hours of testing!!
She did well, all things considered: 33 composite, 35 math, 35 science, 32 reading, 29 English, 8 essay. (Interested in a STEM major, most probably nursing)
Thinking we should cut bait on the SAT (currently 1390) and cancel the May SAT test. Right? Then try one more ACT – assuming D26 agrees.
But could someone explain how the ACT superscoring works? Does ACT generate a separate superscore report to send to colleges? Will colleges still see all of the subscores from both tests regardless – or just the highest sub-scores that get pulled into the superscore report? Is there any downside to re-testing (besides a grumpy teenager)? For example, what if she scored lower across the board on the second test – could we just not send the second test and only send the first test results?
Sorry for so many basic questions, but this is my first experience with the ACT. Until this year, our state used the PSAT/SAT (and my older two kids just did the SAT). Thanks
I’m not an ACT expert, so take this with a grain of salt. I think cancelling the May SAT is a good idea. Most colleges don’t require you to submit an ACT writing score, so take a look at the individual colleges’ testing requirements for the schools she’s thinking of applying to. Because if none of them require ACT Writing, then IF your D26 decides to retake the ACT, then she could just not sign up for the Writing part and then the overall test will be less time.
She will have the option of sending a specific test, all tests, or her superscore. If she selects superscore, just the subtests used to create that score are sent although the document does indicate the test date for each subsection.
The only downside to retesting is cost and time. Unless her schools of interest want to see the essay score, I would suggest that she retake without the essay. The 8 would then appear on her superscore, but 1) most schools don’t care about the score, and 2) an 8 is considered a good score.
Awesome, thanks for that. Exactly the info I needed.
And, yes, I think I agree with everyone about skipping the essay next time. The ACT (even without technical difficulties) is a long test for kids with accommodations. If Google is right, her essay score of 8 is not necessarily good – but should be good enough that it won’t hurt her (especially with a STEM major).
We are doing the exact same thing—dropping the SAT entirely and taking the ACT one more time in June (paper test with science). My S26 got the same composite score as your D, but 34M, 35S, 35R, 28E). He’s going to try to raise English and send a superscore.
Did you notice in the online ACT score report you can see the breakdown of the categories of questions and the scores within? For my S26, it’s clearly the “conventions of standard English” which I take to mean grammar and punctuation, but we are going to figure out how to prep him there.
Yes, our kids have very similar scores. I just looked at the English break down and its 21/23 Production of Writing, 10/11 Knowledge of Language, and 30/42 Conventions of Standard English.
Let me know if you find any good grammar resources for prep!
YMMV, but not a single NPC was accurate for us. They were all off, some by $25K a year. Only one school turned out lower than the NPC, and that’s where she is going (although that is kind of a coincidence).
However, we did find College Vine’s predictions to be very accurate. They were right on 5 out 6 of her schools.
Curious how many of those fell in the “target” category. Some others on CC say it’s not accurate for those. (I’m particularly curious because it has a target for my C26 one I’d consider a reach, and a couple of safeties that I’d more think of as targets, albeit comfortable targets.)
I don’t remember the exact percentages. Her two lowest percentages on CV (somewhere in the 30 percent range) were Clemson (accepted) and U of Miami (waitlisted; she declined the waitlist.)
So I just jumped on College Vine for the first time and set up a quick profile. For some reason, it gave my D a higher % of acceptance if she applies using her SAT score (1390) versus her ACT score (33) — which makes no sense to me. Based on the ACT/SAT conversion chart, the 33 is roughly equivalent to a 1450-1480. And based on national percentiles, the 33 is in the 98th percentile but the 1390 is the 97th percentile (94th user group percentile). So, is there a general bias in favor of the SAT? What am I missing here?
Is this across all colleges? I would think they use the middle 50 of each college to do that calculation, and the ACT/SAT scores of those may not always tally. If it’s more general, I don’t have a theory.
I use CollegeVine for S26 and use his 33 composite. I’ll mess around with the numbers and see if it moves. I didn’t notice that his ELA score was affecting the chances—just thought it was using the overall composite
Thanks. I have played around some more on College Vine, and have concluded it is an issue with the way College Vine reports the ACT for calculation purposes…
When I click on “See Chancing Explanation” it only reports my D’s ACT Composite (33), Math (35) and English (29) — completing disregarding her Reading score (32) and Science (35). It’s that 29 that is hurting her chances across the board at her reach schools. (Compared to a R720 on the SAT).
So, using University of Michigan as an example (probably her biggest reach), College Vine reports a 27% chance (hard target) with SAT versus a 24 % (reach) chance with ACT. Same at a few others. The chance percentage goes up a few points using the SAT.
So is this really how schools look at the ACT – just the Math and English? I would think the Reading section (which is essentially reading comprehension) would be equally, if not more important, than English (which is largely grammar).
I think I read that your D26 plans on retaking the ACT I believe they say English is one of the sections that will raise the most with test prep! So if they raised even a bit it would definitely be stronger than your SAT. Try to look for the ACT test sites where you can skip science and the essay because your students science score and essay are already solid. My D26 did not study for the ACT she planned on studying this summer She did take a quick look at the ACT prep black book for test strategies and said that was actually pretty helpful.
Ok, I tried this too, using my daughter’s SAT score from a few years ago (my son hasn’t taken the SAT)—1470, 710RW, 760M. This is actually the equivalent of a 33 composite ACT score. And yep, same thing. It moved the needle a couple more points on some schools.
I too wonder if admissions uses only the English and Math ACT sections—but I have to imagine they look at all of them. I bet it’s a technical feature/glitch of the CV Chancing Engine and not actually how it’s viewed by schools. Especially since I saw that BU is continuing to require science to be taken and reported.
Regardless, we gotta get on that grammar prep. I hear it’s an easier section to raise so fingers crossed.
She did take a quick look at the ACT prep black book for test strategies and said that was actually pretty helpful.