Good point @rampions and as I was the one who said it, to clarify, my comment was referring uskoolfish’s story in the comment above mine which was about the ACT reading section. The ACT does not have a penalty for guessing. The new SAT as I understand it which will debut next month does not have a guessing penalty either but the old one did. Though I haven’t paid much attention to it either and will join you in that Stroman combo.
There is no reason for the high school to have all of your scores. Simply use the code for homeschool instead of your high school code when signing up to take the test. Once you have a score you are satisfied with, just have it sent to your high school just like you would a college. This prevents lower scores from appearing on high school transcripts without your knowledge.
My wife is a college counselor and deals with this a lot. I will ask her to confirm, but she always encourages students to take both the SAT and the ACT (because some students perform better on one than another) and to take them at least twice because the majority of schools will accept your highest score on individual sections.
I have friends in the college admissions office and they know that even when only one score is sent in that the student more than likely took the test numerous times (or at least twice) we are fooling no one.
My son’s classmate made a perfect score on the ACT and SAT the first time he took each.The majority of kids at their school only took the tests once, and many scored in the 30s on the ACT.
@bisouu (and @Dusing2) - hope that is not the presumption - my daughter took the SAT once only, Jan 2015, and, while one of her three scores could have been a tad higher, she did extremely well on the other two - which were her strength areas as reflected on her transcript, and we decided that rather than take it again to try to bump up math 50 points or so, and risk lowering one of the other two scores in the process, it would be more impressive to have a non-super-scored result showing just taken once. Hate to think the presumption is that we are hiding something.
She also took the ACT and didn’t do as well overall, and we opted not to report that one at all, which is allowable at almost all schools save some of the top Ivies and equivalents, where they state that they want to see all scores, including all SAT II scores.
LIke everything else, there seems to be a “let’s do it again, just to see if you can blah blah blah” (and I have two other kids who DID take it twice, and improved, and the second kid also took the ACT and killed it, so it was totally worthwhile to do both in his case) but sometimes it’s just fine to say “Pretty happy with the results. Think they reflect who you are, over and out. Now you can focus on the applications/the monologues and all the et ceteras.”
But depending on the school, they would not replace a higher score with a lower score. Most schools take the highest score if you repeat the SAT. Or so my college counselor wife tells me.
At some point though you have to decide you’re OK with your scores and go with it, to be sure.
If admissions reps assume multiple test attempts (whether that was the case or not), months of private tutoring (even if there was little to none) I seriously doubt it’s something admissions spends much time worrying about. They know they can’t know what really happened and probably don’t care. In the end, they just want the score. More schools are becoming test optional and placing greater emphasis on one’s academic performance during high school. Prevailing thought is that academic performance over a longer term tends to be a better predictor of performance in college. However, there are still plenty of schools that tie merit awards to a combination of testing and academics so it’s not time to ignore the tests and it is still worth it financially to squeeze some extra points to be in the range for merit if it can be done be that through preparation, more than one attempt at the test or both.
And completely agree with this statement from @jeffandann, “At some point though you have to decide you’re OK with your scores and go with it, to be sure.” If you spend a disproportionate amount of time worrying about the tests, something else will have to give. For that reason, both of my kids only took the ACT and got it out of the way spring of junior year. This was a deliberate decision so that they would have more time for applications and for finishing strong in HS (especially 1st semester which the colleges see) and in my daughter’s case, so she could hit the audition trail.
Agree with the above. My wife would tell you to make sure you know exactly what the schools you’re applying to want in an application, and also look carefully at requirements for academic scholarships. Getting money for academic performance can mean the difference between being able to afford a school or not, and test scores figure into that. In my D’s case, she took the SAT once and was prepared to take it again, but then got an ACT score high enough (32) that it was sufficient to get the kind of scholarship money she wanted from the schools that she applied to (along with grades, of course).
Ok so do any kids from this forum ever NOT do well on the SAT/ACT!? Lol just sayin. Everyone posts that their kid had these crazy high scores and I have a lot of worry about my D doing not so well when she takes it in March. Her PSAT was not that high and she struggles in math so it’s quite a concern. I know a lot of MT schools aren’t that picky & her GPA is 3.8 so with EC etc I’m hoping it will be ok and she doesn’t get shut out of merit money because then her school selection will really suck . Especially since the MT programs are tough anyway…I know test optional would be an option but a lot of those will be too expensive …
My daughter’s ACT scores were very much dependent upon what she actually studied…made me so mad because she took it a second time to raise her score, but only studied the sections she hadn’t studied for the previous ACT. So what happened? Her scores went up a couple of points in the sections she studied, and down a couple of points in the sections she didn’t study, so the score total ended up being the same. It was only after the second test that she acknowledged that the studying made a difference. But by then it was too late. All I wanted was her to raise it from a 29 to a 30, which was very doable. Arrgh. 
Edited to add: she took it a total of 3 times–the first time, she didn’t study at all and got a 23, so I’m thankful she at least managed to get it up to a 29…but the studying clearly made a difference–I think what helps is just getting used to the format of the test and the types of questions that are asked.
@theaterwork - I know a young man who had a score in the VERY low 20s (21 is in my head- but not sure) and he got 8 BFA offers last year (including schools like Ithaca, BW, Otterbein, Rider, Wright State). His grades were better than score (though still under 3.0). I don’t think he got merit $$ - though he did get need and talent. Just goes to show- if they want you, they want you
Theaterwork:
You might want to consider SAT classes to help her with the math part. And you need to make sure you do your homework as you look at schools. As pointed out some schools look more at GPA for scholarships, etc. But the other thing to remember about grades, GPAs, etc. is what classes colleges use to calculate a GPA. Many schools will not simply take the high school transcript GPA but will recalculate based only on core classes such as math, language arts, etc. So sometimes you’ll get a false sense of security if you have a student that has done well in elective classes but not as well in the core curriculum. Not trying to be negative but these are just realities when applying to colleges these days regardless of major. Most colleges also have options such as work-study in addition to scholarships to help defray college costs.
The right place is out there.
@jeffandann I believe my daughters core GPA is 3.75 or so. She literally has straight A’s in all but math so it’s not a lopsided thing where she only does well in electives lol. She actually attends an arts high school so not sure if her Acting classes are still considered electives since they actually are core at her school…but yes her dance class and voice lessons etc would be considered electives.
Her PSAT score in reading/writing was in some crazy 90th percentile but her math brings her whole score down . Sad but true. She left 6 questions blank on it because they were fill in the blank and she just didn’t know what to put down… It’s been an issue since elem school really.,
I would encourage your D to do some SAT training. It’s not so much learning new math but test strategies. I always get them confused but one of the either the SAT penalizes you for guessing on an answer and the other does not.
And make sure she takes both tests because most kids do better on one vs the other. I’m confident things will work out well for her.
@theaterwork - you never know what some tutoring might do! This throws it back (too many) years to my senior year in college - and I was prepping to take the GRE. I KNEW i stunk at math, and so I had my math genius boyfriend (now husband) tutor me. I would take practice tests, and then he’d painstakingly go over every wrong math problem with me and help me figure out what I did wrong. In the end - my math score was higher than my verbal. (Um - I was an English Lit major… didn’t study much for the verbal portion because- duh - I had that!) But the point is - the tutoring REALLY boosted my math scores.
I’m sending her to SAT prep at school . They meet once a week. Then after March test I’m going to have her tutored over the summer and retake,
At least the new SAT does not penalize for guessing anymore , thank God , so we told her to just guess on some of the math she doesn’t get. It was the write ins she left blank because they were too hard she said. She thought about taking ACT in fall but I wonder about that because they say the math is more difficult on it , since it has Trig etc…very stressful . thanks for your input though. I don’t have other kids so I’m doing all this for the first and last time.
My wife advises all students to take both the ACT and SAT. The ACT is a little more math and science oriented true but the science is more reading graphs, spotting trends in data, etc. if I understand it correctly. It can’t hurt and maybe she’ll do better on that than the SAT!
We used a private tutor rather than a class for flexibility in scheduling - and so that it was oriented specifically to D and her needs. Wasn’t cheap - I think we spend $800, but if you look at return on investment (she ended up with a 4 point bump from her 1st ACT) and the merit $$ that it qualified her for - it was a slam dunk
For one D her math went up dramatically on the ACT vs. the SAT. For the other, it was lower on the ACT. But I wouldn’t rely on what others say, I would have her take the ACT one time (without any real additional studying) once she has prepared for the SAT. The only additional thing both D’s did was read about the science section and take one or 2 practices of that section. (One evening worth of preparation.)
If you are already paying for the SAT course and additional tutoring, it pays to invest in the ACT once. For oldest D it was a matter of going from a 650 math score (equivalent to a 30 ACT) all the way to a 35 ACT score in math. That was a dramatic difference for no additional work/ studying.