<p>I just recently took the ACT and got a 25, which I know isn’t good, but how bad is it if I were to apply to UCI, or Occidental? And for the info. I am retaking the ACT the next month because I scored really low in the reading and science because I had to skip so many problems.</p>
<p>Interesting. I just checked the UCI Common Data Set and for the last two years 100% of students used the SATs for scores (no ACT scores). <a href=“http://www.oir.uci.edu/campus/CDS2008_09.pdf[/url]”>http://www.oir.uci.edu/campus/CDS2008_09.pdf</a> Using the SAT ACT Concordance chart [ACT-SAT</a> Concordance](<a href=“http://www.act.org/aap/concordance/index.html]ACT-SAT”>http://www.act.org/aap/concordance/index.html) you come out at an 1150 for the SAT. That is somewhere between the 25% level (1090) and the 75% level (1300). That’s a little low.</p>
<p>You have to check each college’s entering freshman profile to determine what a “good” or “bad” score is. A good score is one that puts you in range of acceptance at the school of your choice. A bad score is one that drops below the 25% for that college’s accepted students. It is a good idea to check the individual college websites for the freshman profile since they are sometimes more current than the big databases. I would advise trying to retake the ACT and to get your score up a bit for those two particular schools. Have you tried the SAT? The SAT tends to be easier to “prep” for than the ACT. You can get a book or attend a class and try to learn some SAT strategies. Also, just having taken a standardized test before tends to give you a higher score the next time you take it so your score is likely to go up even if you do not do additional prep. One more thing, since there is no “guessing penalty” on the ACT so you can always try to put some answer in the ones you skipped last time. You may get some right by chance. Do not do this on the SAT though, as they do deduct pints for wrong answers. Good luck!</p>