No lie, I flat out told my son that I would give him $20 if he didn’t get an A in whatever subject it was that was making him crazy. This was when he was a sophomore.
He didn’t take me up on it, but college has shown him that you have to accept that you won’t always be top of the pack with perfect grades, by a long shot.
Argh. So technically, yes, a 36 could be more competitive in a very few instances. I knew it.
Again, we don’t want to grind through testing. My kid has worked hard to balance sport and classwork and I have always been in charge of scheduling to try and give them balance between these two options.
It’s not that we’re trying to concentrate on the wrong things. I asked this question in all seriousness because there are only two test dates left coming right up and it was important to know that there really wasn’t a major benefit to to trying again. All the feedback here from more experienced parents is appreciated.
My goal is to have the least amount of “should’ve done that” scenarios in my kid’s college application.
Since testing is apparently taken care of, I’d like to focus on my kid’s school list and their building of their application. Would a new thread be best, and where would it best be placed?
A new thread, using the chance / match section template, would be better than this existing thread based on the ACT section scores.
I seriously doubt it would make any difference, but will acknowledge that the ACT science is way more about reading speed that anything science related. We didn’t do the expensive tutor thing, but did have my kids do a practice test so they were familiar with the format. My STEM kid struggled with the science section until he realized that you really do NOT need to read the section - look at the graphs and answer the questions.
Agreed! ACT is a speed reading test, not a test of knowledge or reasoning. SAT suited my son much better.
Personally, I think the strong E & R scores put an exclamation point on an application where a kid has already shown that they are strong in math and sciences.
Just to clarify - likely not more competitive. But in a few instances that can be defined - more merit. Alabama and UAH for sure. Not sure if any others.
Doesn’t that scholarship also require a 4.0+? If so, it’s not germane to the OPs student with a 3.93.
On that note, for most schools, GPA will be their most important litmus test.
My S23 applied to most schools as physics and math and like yours got 36 on both English scores and 35/34 on science/math. Didn’t retake. Didn’t seem to hurt him in admissions even for schools known for STEM-emphasis. I theorize that schools like seeing STEM applicants who also are demonstrably strong in non-STEM. 34 is a great score.
And that’s where my kid’s cc de courses in math had consequences - earned a B+ in Calc 3 in a class where the teacher announced that it was really hard to get an A and not many students would do so. (It was also a largely self-taught course, so a good intro to college coursework. Hardest class in school so far.)
So my kid went for rigor and will come up short for some of these most competitive scholarships because rigor is the path that made most sense for them, academically. That B seems costly, even though it was for a subject that is considered advanced course work.
Glad that your son had positive admissions, @citivas!
I miss-typed the thread title - it was a 33 in Science, which, with the 35 Math, gave a 34 STEM composite.
The good news is that job opportunities and salaries are similar with a BS from MANY schools, even some where almost everyone is admitted.
Yes, but if a weighted GPA is used, getting a >= 4.0 for that purpose may be possible.
Keep in mind that is just one specific merit scholarship. There are many more.
@thealternative so are you saying that you are worried that your kid doesn’t have a perfect 36 ACT and got ONE grade of B in high school?
Please…please…this may sound harsh, but I think you need to lighten up. This is still a great applicant for many many colleges with ABET ME programs…and where this kid can still get significant merit aid.
It’s a little more nuanced than that. I am more than fine with what my kid has done; can’t change things even if we could.
However, one has to be aware of the radically different landscape kids are faced with when applying these days. My spouse works in tech, and there are some pretty common applicant types amongst the children of tech workers (not all, but many). We could’ve done the whole early math prep/math competition/science fair route, starting with Beast Academy classes, etc. My kid was in a Math Circle for a few years, too. No start-ups, no foundations, no big impression tech experiences (more often than not greatly assisted by parents) in our kid’s application.
Sports, and a certain amount of personal/un-juried art and craft, were more my kid’s speed.
At this point for a rising senior, the student’s profile is fairly set. But our family isn’t using any counselors or other assistance in the application. So I’m asking questions here - and getting great perspective.
It’s great that your student was able to pursue things he enjoyed while still doing very well in high school.
You do realize that the very vast majority of college applicants do not use a paid college counselor at all.
It’s good that you are posing your questions here…but really…no need to focus on one B grade or a 35 vs 36 ACT score.
Better to find some wonderful colleges that would be more than happy to have this student as a member of their school community.
Do you want suggestions about colleges? If so…ask…but give some guidelines like size, location, secular vs religion, urban/suburban/rural, cost, distance from home/ease of transportation to college. If so…start that thread as suggested by a poster upstream.
Will you expand on what you mean by this, what your hopes are for the school(s) they get into, and what opportunities you are hoping that experience opens? It seems like you might have some preconceived notions that might not be accurate. That’s just me reading between the lines though. Hoping you can clarify.
What has changed since a generation ago are that kids with excellent grades and test scores don’t have admissions rates like 20%+ at the most selective few private colleges.
What hasn’t changed is kids like that typically having no problem getting into one or more of the many public universities with very strong engineering programs. Maybe not a specific one, but one of them.
Affordability has changed too, and unsubsidized in-state tuition has gone up in many states, so that is one possible issue for some families.
But I also think it is a lot easier these days to identify merit opportunities (in-state, out of state, and private), which is very much a plus for the kids with excellent grades and test scores.
So, overall–I don’t actually think this is a bad time to be a kid with excellent grades and test scores who wants a great, and at least reasonably affordable, engineering degree. You may not (or may) end up at the same college you would have a generation ago, but if you are open minded about that it is then pretty easy to end up in some great college situation–with such credentials, at least.
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