I am an athlete who will be recruited for my sport. I am trying to get recruited to the ivy league or to a top academic division 3 school (middlebury, williams, amherst). What looks better when telling coaches or when putting on application?
1950 SAT
710 Math
670 Writing
570 Critical Reading
Or
ACT Composite-29
33 Math
32 Reading
28 English
24 Science (this blew my mark)
Thank you for your help in advance!
They are about equal and would be borderline for a recruited athlete at that level of a school.
@TomSrOfBoston I know it sucks. I really needed a 30 as all my friends in my sport are getting recruited by those schools with 30 act but they are a little weaker recruits. Not sure if this will mean anything but I am devastated. Do you think the act would look better as I scored well on math and reading?
The ACT looks slightly better because with the SAT the writing is not as important. But for the most selective schools, for a recruited athlete, 30 is the unofficial minimum, so perhaps try the ACT again
@wisteria100 thank you. I am going to get it marked by hand as I am pretty shocked by the science score. Was consistently scoring in the 29-31 range but I got a 24. Maybe the curve was harsh but I think it is worth it as one question more would have gotten me a 30
Even if you get it rescored to a 30, why not take it again. You may be able to get yourself in the 31-32 range.
@wisteria100 I guess thats true
No question, take the ACT again. You are a junior, I assume? You have plenty of time to improve your score, whihc was decent except for science. Good luck.
Pretty much the same. And I agree that it seems worthwhile to retake the ACT.
https://www.act.org/aap/concordance/estimate.html
Another vote for retaking the ACT. Look at your English subscores and see if there’s a pattern there. Study but you may want to limit the bulk of your practice ACT questions to English and Science. It may help to look at the English and Science from a slightly different viewpoint. Science is another form of the Reading (reading comprehension of charts, tables and graphs - the paragraph is not as important). English (Usage) can be seen as a logic test. You can top 30.
If you are good enough at your sport, either the 1950 SAT or the 29 ACT can be good enough for the Ivies. The Ivies can bend admissions all the way down to the minimum level permitted by their academic index. I know a recruited player attending an Ivy with an SAT in the mid 1800s. But he’s extremely good at his sport. The better you are, the more they will bend, up to the limit of a 171 academic index.
go here to calculate your Ivy League academic index score
http://www.tier1athletics.org/2012/10/01/academic-index-calculator-2016/
As a rule, the top NESCAC schools like Williams and Amherst (and other top D3 schools like Chicago, Swarthmore and Pomona) cannot stretch admissions as far as the Ivies. You need to get those standardized test scores up a bit for them (but of course, you don’t need to be quite as good at your sport for them to be interested in you).
@ThankYouforHelp thanks. you are right, ivies can definitely bend more on admissions than the others. the coaches of the other schools told me the 30act is what they needed
update: I got a 30 on writing and sat I got a 9 essay
The writing score doesn’t matter much. Although concordant tables show that your 29 is similar to the 1950, your 29 is much better since your CR is so low for SAT. I’d give the ACT another shot.
The ACT is better. Many schools super-score. The two most important subscales are the English and Math. The science only adds noise to the composite. And, for the OP it also brought the composite down markedly. English (28 or at the 88%iile) and math (33 or the 98th %ile) and Reading (95th %ile) were quite good. Science at 77%ile) was less good but it is a bogus subscale. It does not seem to measure anything meaningful and certainly has no relation ship to aptitude in science. The composite is still in the 92 %ile though. Not bad. But if you take it again and improve in just English to a 33-even if you don’t do better on the composite, you’d have a 33 33 on the two most important subscales for colleges that superscore.
Regardless of the conversion tables, I think the ACT is better than the SAT score. And I think it will be easier to raise that score.
thank you so much @lostaccount
I will retake it but the schools I am getting recruited to are ivy leagues so they do not superstore ACT at least what I have heard
but you are right in the sense that my cr scores are low on sat so the act looks better