Unbalanced ACT

Colleges & Universities Yale University
1

<p>Hey,</p>

<p>On my ACT I got a composite 31, with:
English: 32
Math: 36 !!!
Reading: 26 :cry:
Science: 31
Essay: 8</p>

<p>I am clearly a math/science/left-brained thinker, with a 800 Math Level 2 and 750 Biology M. So… will Yale… (1) look more at my composite (thus my unbalance has no effect), (2) look favorably on my math skills (thus, my perfect score will shine through), or (3) look down on my 26 and immediately reject me? </p>

<p>I will be retaking the SAT this Saturday, but I’m afraid my critical reading won’t be much better. I do have a national science fair (1st place), and other “mathy” activities (programming, business, etc.).</p>

<p>If it still carries any weight nowadays, I am a legacy (father completed medical residency there) and have an NROTC scholarship placed at Yale.</p>

<p>Any help would be greatly appreciated!</p>

2

<p>I believe Yale, and most selective colleges, ignore ACT subset scores and just look at your composite score. </p>

<p>You are clearly a math person, but a composite score of 31 puts you in Yale’s 25th percentile. That means that 75% of admitted Yale students had a better composite score than you. </p>

<p>Although test scores are only one part of your file, getting a higher score with the ACT, or the SAT, would put you on more solid ground. Good luck with the SAT this weekend! If you retake the ACT, you can find many tips on google on how to improve your reading score: <a href=“how to improve ACT reading score - Google Search”>how to improve ACT reading score - Google Search;

<p>In terms of your legacy, see: [Debating</a> Legacy Admissions at Yale, and Elsewhere - NYTimes.com](<a href=“http://thechoice.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/04/29/legacy-2/]Debating”>Debating Legacy Admissions at Yale, and Elsewhere - The New York Times)</p>

<p>“We turn away 80 percent of our legacies, and we feel it every day,” Mr. Brenzel said, adding that he rejected more offspring of the school’s Sterling donors than he accepted this year (Sterling donors are among the most generous contributors to Yale). He argued that legacies scored 20 points higher on the SAT than the rest of the class as a whole."</p>

3

<p>Completing a medical residency at a Yale hospital is not going to count for Legacy status anyway. It is reasonable to assume that as the child of a physician, you had many additional opportunities and unless you are a recruited athlete or a member of an under represented minority, an ACT score at the 25% will be a problem. If your national science fair first place win is at the Intel STS, that would be an extraordinary enough accomplishment to make standardized test scores irrelevant.</p>

4

<p>^the award cannot be from STS. STS awards are in March. It could be ISEF, however.</p>