<p>My daughter is a good student--As and some Bs. She takes all honors courses, except for math and has a nice gpa. Unfortunately, she is not a great test taker. In spite of tutoring, she only got 550 reading, 540 math, and 590 writing. This was the second time she took the test and she is not really willing to do it again. She is a junior and we are in the process of looking at colleges. So far we've seen UMass Amherst, URI, and UConn. With these stats, we think UMass and URI would be good bets, but UConn will probably think her SATs aren't good enough. Any suggestions? We're in the Northeast and she'd like to stay within about 3 hours from here.</p>
<p><a href=“http://www.fairtest.org/university/optional[/url]”>http://www.fairtest.org/university/optional</a> There are many excellent schools which do not require SATs or ACTs.</p>
<p>I would also recommend looking at the ACT. Many students do better on that than the SAT.</p>
<p>I second what Erin’s Dad said! I took the SAT with A LOT of studying, multiple practice tests, classes… the whole package! and i got a very unimpressive ~1700s. Then I took the ACT once and did comparatively well with no studying. </p>
<p>After studying (not nearly as much as I did for the SAT), I got a 31 and was satisfied. </p>
<p>I’d say the ACT is well worth it.</p>
<p>She’s only a junior. D hasn’t even taken the SAT once yet. She still has time, and I really think she should give some serious thought to having another go at it. Not being a great test taker can be overcome.</p>
<p>Umass and URI would be safeties IMO…Look at Stonehill, Fairfield, Sacred Heart…Many options besides the state schools.</p>
<p>There are plenty of higher ranked schools which are SAT optional, from Hamilton and Mount Holyoke, to Smith and American, and dozens of others. </p>
<p>My younger d. never gained a single point from studying, tutoring, or what-not in taking SATs or ACTs multiple times. Not one. It didn’t make any difference. She submitted her scores got into her first choice college (where she would have been in the bottom 15% of the student population - hey, 15% of students live there!), and graduates from the graduate school of her choice (her GREs were even worse) next month.</p>
<p>I wouldn’t call that a bad SAT…who cares if its unspectacular? ;). </p>
<p>and she’s old enough to decide if studying and taking it again is worth it. </p>
<p>Probably won’t be for most colleges. Even if her score was considered low (which it isnt), her strengths in other areas will likely make up for it. For example: even if a median SAT of a school is higher, 50% of those students are below that score, and students with high GPA’s, good writing skills (?), and honor classes in their transcripts probably make up those lower 50%.</p>
<p>Yes, have her take the ACT.</p>
<p>Are you willing to pay full price? </p>
<p>Some test-optional schools require test submission for merit scholarship consideration.</p>
<p>If you need financial aid, take off the out of state publics.</p>
<p>Are Catholic schools ok? A number of them would accept her.</p>
<p>I keep hearing rigor of curriculum, grades in those challenging classes, and then SAT scores are the order of importance. I am hoping if they have everything else including ECs and and essays etc that hours on a few few Saturday mornings pale in comparison to the picture of the student overall.</p>
<p>Go for the ACT. My daughters didn’t do so hot on the SAT but great on the ACT. Just a different kind of test.</p>
<p>Thanks for your feedback. I will ask her if she’s willing to consider taking the ACT, just for comparison’s sake. As for Catholic schools, that really isn’t an option for us. We will investigate the test optional schools and have her put her effort into writing an excellent essay. I realize her SATs are not bad, just that they don’t really accurately reflect her potential. It takes me back a bit, since I was 8th in my graduating class in high school and also had relatively modest test scores. I guess the apple doesn’t fall too far from the tree! I ended up going to Boston University and graduating with honors. So much for predictive validity of the SAT. While a student who gets very high scores is certainly very intelligent, just because a student doesn’t get such high scores doesn’t mean he/she is not intelligent and willing to work hard to be successful in college. I appreciate all of your suggestions!</p>
<p>I keep hearing rigor of curriculum, grades in those challenging classes, and then SAT scores are the order of importance. I am hoping if they have everything else including ECs and and essays etc that hours on a few few Saturday mornings pale in comparison to the picture of the student overall.</p>
<p>Well, it’s because there is soooo much grade inflation going on these days in high schools, that colleges use SAT/ACT scores as a way to determine whether the grades/course rigor are really what the grades suggest.</p>
<p>But, as in the case of the OP, her tests really don’t speak to her abilities, then test optional schools or taking the ACT may be the answer.</p>
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<p>However, Massachusetts, Connecticut, and Rhode Island all offer a New England regional discount, resulting in regional costs of attendance about $6,000 to $8,000 higher than in state costs of attendance (as opposed to $14,000 to $17,000 higher for non-regional out of state – which still makes them less expensive than many out of state public schools or private schools at list price.).</p>
<p>^yes, but only if your major is not available at your in state college</p>
<p>I’d also suggest that if your school offers dual college credit classes in your D’s weak areas to go ahead and take them. One of my D’s scores in the math section stink, but she is an A/B student; she just can’t work fast enough in the ACT framework. She is taking college algebra this year and has a 93 in the college portion of the course and a 100 in the HS portion. I’m hoping that this shows adcoms that she is not deficient when it comes to math, just doesn’t test well under those circumstances. Can’t tell you if it will work or not, but it’s my plan :). In her major she won’t ever need another math in college most likely anyway!</p>
<p>About GPA’s, this is why colleges like to have an ACT or SAT score. That is really what helps them “evaluate” the rigor of a high school. It isn’t a set in stone if you get XX on your test your high school is hard, but a 3.8 student at one school could be vastly different than a 3.8 student at another school. The schools we have looked at actually have GPA pretty far down the list for things they look at/evaluate. Rigor is almost always #1, then they liked to see class rank and test scores flip flopping between #2 and #3, then GPA or often it will be essay/EC’s then GPA.</p>
<p>Also, if your kids don’t have access to many AP’s or the ‘honors’ courses are not that challenging, I think it hurts the kids on the ACT/SAT because they haven’t been exposed to the material on the test.</p>
<p>I think parents get a little too caught up in GPA and use that to determine if their child is a “good” student or not and while it is important to do your best, a 3.5 at a rigorous high school that pops off 2200 SAT’s or 33 ACT is going to look, on paper, like a better student than a 3.8 with a 1800 SAT and a 23 ACT.</p>
<p>Bottom line. SATs and ACTs are poorer predictors of college success regardless of the high school. The best predictor of four year college graduation is a high school GPA of at least 3.0. </p>
<p>The College Board is a money grubbing scam that rakes in $600 million a year in revenue–not to mention the billions spent on test prep. It’s a lazy way for admission offices to do their job rather than spending on the resources to evaluate carefully applications. </p>
<p>There is no study that shows it predicts college success as well as GPA.</p>
<p>It’s ironic that colleges, which are supposedly the fonts of critical thinking and scientific method, ignore that in their admission process.</p>
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And you are ignoring studies that show GPA + standardized tests are a better predictor than GPA alone. Most colleges use GPA/class rank AND standardized tests for admission. I only know of a few that weight tests more than GPA.</p>
<p>OHS1979 ~ I feel like I could have written your post for my daughter. we, unfortunately are in the same boat. Somewhat. My daughter has a 3.9 unweighted GPA and a 4.3 weighted. She’s in the top 2% of her class as well, but she is a notoriously bad standardized test taker. We are in the midwest, so she is preparing for the ACT. In February, she started prepping for the ACT, which she just took last Saturday. The scores on her practice tests have not been bad, but not stellar either. And certainly not inline w/what you would expect her to get based on her GPA and class rank. Her practice tests are usually about a 28, but one time she scored a 30. She really would love to get a 32 to help ensure that she is accepted where she applies and also help ensure that she gets any type of merit aid. She felt very good about the first 3 sections of the ACT test last Saturday, but the Science section was brutally hard and she thinks this one section could have ruined her whole composite score. She is committed to trying to do as well as she can, and she is willing to take the test multiple times, if necessary. She’s signed up again in June and if need be she can take in again in September and/or October. My daughter does not really want to take it again because it is very time consuming to prepare for it, but she also knows how critical this test is going to be in the college admissions process. I can certainly understand why your daughter does not want to take it again. With homework and EC’s, trying to study/prepare for the SAT or the ACT is very difficult.</p>
<p>If your daughter does take the ACT, just be aware that it is a timed test. With my daughter, I think this is one of the reasons why she doesn’t do better on it. She has done sections of the reading section of the ACT for her AP English class and will get a 34 on them when not rushed w/a time limit; however, when she takes a practice reading section, and is given the same time limit as the ACT, she will only score about a 27 or 28. It has been suggested here that I have my daughter take the SAT because it does not have the same sort of time constraints that the ACT does. Right now she has put so much time into preparing for the ACT, that I can’t even think of her taking the SAT until sometime this Fall, when she has the summer to prepare.</p>
<p>I think part of the reason that my daughter struggles w/the ACT is partially due to the time constraints. When she does homework, she really takes her time and is very thorough. I just think the time constraints of the ACT are unrealistic for her. She takes tests all the time for her classes, and they are not given unlimited time, and she is able to do well enough on them to have a very good GPA. She doesn’t have any official scores from a real ACT test; she won’t get back her first set of scores until the end of April and then we will take it from there.</p>
<p>Anyway, I just wanted to let you know that there are others in your shoes that share that same concerns and issues. Regardless of how my daughter ultimately does on the ACT, I know she will be very successful at college because she has awesome study habits and is a student who will put a lot of time into her studies.</p>