Hi everyone,
Our son, a sophomore, just checked his scores for the April ACT and got a 33 composite with a 35 English, 35 Math, 33 Reading, and a 30 Science. He is interested in applying to engineering programs in college and is concerned that his lower Science score could affect his application negatively.
Do you know if schools even take that type of thing into account? Should he retake it? Do you think if he retakes it and does slightly worse on the English and Math, but better on the Science, that it looks bad to see some scores go down?
Do schools truly superscore and not look at your individual scores negatively?
Thanks for helping us figure this out!
Do you have any idea where he plans to apply? Some schools are more transparent than others about what they care about. None of the schools my S applied to super scored but none cared about ACT science- mainly because SAT kids don’t have a science score to compare to so ACT science could not be used as a differentiator (unless they took an SAT science subject test-maybe). None of the ones he spoiled to looked at SAT subject tests.
He just did his first visits this month and really liked Virginia Tech, Georgia Tech, and Johns Hopkins.
He will do more visits next year to the Midwest, visiting UIUC, UMich, Purdue, etc.
At this point, his top choice would be Virginia Tech, but that could change.
@RoonilWazlib99 I took my son to VT’s Engineering open house earlier this month. The admission officer that spoke said that VT only uses the English and Math section of the ACT for admission purposes.
I can’t speak for any of the other colleges you mentioned.
My son has similar scores as your son, with a 30 in science also, which was very frustrating to him. He was happy to hear that VT doesn’t care about the science section.
Not sure if your son has taken the SAT, but the VT admissions person also says that not only do they superscore but they will superscore between the exams. So if his highest math score in on the SAT and his highest English is on the ACT those are the two scores they will look at. I’ve never heard of any other college doing this.
When it comes to the ACT, it looks like the schools you listed either superscore (take highest section scores and create a new composite) or use the highest section score across each test.
https://admissions.illinois.edu/Apply/Freshman/review
https://umich.custhelp.com/app/answers/detail/a_id/2079/~/how-are-test-results-used-in-the-admissions-review-process%3F
https://apply.jhu.edu/apply/exams/
http://admission.gatech.edu/freshman/actsat-scores
For Purdue, I could only find an answer on their admissions Facebook page which I cannot link to.
So it does not appear that taking it again will hurt him at any of these schools.