As she left the test taking center, my daughter told me she was exhausted by the time the writing portion came around, so she just kind of half-assed that part. We just got her scores back and she wound up with a 35 composite (36 on science, everything else 35) but a 7 on the writing. I’ve heard colleges don’t really care about the writing score, but I wasn’t sure if it was so extremely low as to warrant retaking. One concern is that her 35 was quite a bit higher than her practice test scores, so I don’t know if she’d be able to pull off the same score again. She was joking that she could sleep through the main test, just take the writing part and superscore the whole thing. I wasn’t sure that was a great idea.
For further context, she’s currently taking AP Language and Composition, for which there will be a lot of writing on the AP exam, so I’m hoping if she does well on that, the colleges will more or less ignore her ACT writing score. She’ll also be taking AP Literature next year.
Unfortunately, she’s not really STEM focused, so her writing ability will be of some import to colleges. (Currently she’s thinking of majoring in Government.) Other relevant stats are 3.76UW GPA, top 20% of her class, 5 APs so far (2 completed with 5s and currently enrolled in 3) with 4 more next year. Very good ECs and volunteering, but nothing that would be considered a hook.
She’s planning on applying pretty much exclusively to LACs. Her current top choice is Bowdoin, which will be a reach for her. Her matches I think are Grinnell, Oberlin, Scripps, etc.
It shouldn’t make too much of a difference normally. However, seeing as she is applying to fairly competitive schools and her writing score is unusually low in contrast to her overall score, if you want to really try giving every advantage, it would be best to take it again and aim for at least 9-10+. Of course, a 35 is already a great accomplishment. Retaking the test certainly doesn’t hurt, and only takes a few hours of her time. Up to you, but personally I would air on the side of caution.
Second to @“Erin’s Dad” Don’t retake. The writing portion of SAT and ACT do not count much. 25 or 45 minutes of writings in random topic usually mess up good writers who prefer deeper thinking and analyzing before put words on paper. College admission knows that.
Agree. Don’t retake the test to improve writing scores. You are already sending essays and correspondence to demonstrate your writing skills. Further, at the outer limits of the normal curve, scores on subsequent testing tend to move toward the mean. Thus, you should not be surprised if the subtests scores decrease or change relative ranking. It would be expensive and even disappointing to take the entire ACT to get a higher score in writing.
