So I am a high school student in junior year. I recently took the SAT and got a 1530. Initially, I was happy with my score. I assumed I wouldn’t need to take the ACT anymore with my SAT score. However, after talking with friends and peers at my school, I’ve discovered that many kids are getting 35’s and 36’s on their ACT. Now I’m not sure if my 1530 SAT score is good enough to get into a few of my dream schools,
University of Michigan (top choice)
Northwestern University
Washington University in St. Louis
Brown University
Would you recommend I try to take the ACT and attempt to achieve a 35 or 36, in fear that I don’t seem competitive to other peers at my school?
Thank you
The 1530 is a 34 conversion. I have been told once above 34 you start to max out. Only 27k kids scored that or higher last year out the hundreds of thousands of test takers.
If you want to try the act go ahead it won’t hurt. And if you take it twice and focus on the weaker part of the first test you can super score as well. But being worried is not worth it. A perfect gpa and some great ecs can take a 34 to any school in America. If you have the great application that pulls it all together. Teacher recs and relevant essays that speak to your character and interests.
Your 1530 corresponds to a ACT 34, which is a 99% score. If you were my kid, I’d say “one and done.” But if you’re curious, why not take an official ACT practice test under timed conditions and see how you do? Some students do better on one format than the other. For some, there is no difference.
You should shoot for the 75th percentile and above for SAT or ACT scores for those schools. Maybe closer to 50th percentile if you are a 4.0 GPA.
34 seems to be the magical score for a lot of selective schools If you didn’t put a lot of time into then sure give it a shot. You are talking a few questions to raise it. My son’s at Michigan engineering Out of state with a 34. His ecs and essay were awesome. That’s going to be the difference maker.
Michigan just released their results today. Check out who got accepted VS deferred. It was all over the place. Many perfect scores and 35/36 act got deferred to protect their yield. Personally, don’t try to keep up with the Joneses… Write a great essay and get greats grades in rigorous courses. Continue that into your senior year. They dont like kids that let up.
Honestly I wouldn’t bother. Your scores are competitive enough for any college. Spend the time on the weaker parts of your application.
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A 1530 concords to a 35 on the ACT.
My D had 800 verbal - 740 Math and decided to take the ACT once. I told her I didn’t think she needed to but if she did she needed at least a 35 to be useful. So she did 5 weeks of self study and made a 36. Who knows if it was helpful but she felt good about it.
There is some belief that schools like WashU and NW like the 1600/36s to boost their profile. The 36 didn’t help at Brown as she was rejected.
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I find this hard to believe.
I will say that my kid had a 35 on his ACT, but without a spectacular unweighted GPA, he got rejected by UCLA, USC, Northwestern, Vanderbilt and Stanford.
It’s all a game my son had 34 and great grades with rigorous schedule especially senior year. He got accepted, rejected, denied and wait listed by some great colleges. Like a who’s who. But Michigan and a few others said yes and we only need one) :
I agree with the comments above that a 1530/34 pretty much gets you across the line where it will be the other parts of your app that matters. If you feel you have to have an extra bump, especially for scholarship purposes, was your 1530 evenly split, e.g. 770/760 or was 1 score higher than the other, e.g. 800/730. If the latter, you might be better off retaking the SAT with the goal of improving your bottom score for an overall higher superscore. You can certainly take a timed practice ACT to see how you would do.
If you want to aim high, at least try to get a picture of what those colleges look for- not rely on comparisons with other hs kids.
Forget about the ACT correlation. At worst, you have an 800/730. Or 760/770. Plenty fine. What are you thinking?
Dont build a target list until you’ve learned enough about what they look for and had a chance to self match to what they want and look for. Don’t be the kid whose scores are there and assumes that’s all it takes and come spring complains, “But my scores were good.”
Holistic 101.
Don’t dream. Do the work to understand all that matters.