ACT Subscores - Do Adcoms Look?

<p>My dd just received the results from her Oct ACT test. The Composite Score was identical to that which she received in April. While her subscore in Science went down by 1 point, all other scores went up 1-2 points. Just curious whether the only score that anyone looks at is the Composite or whether this is like SAT's where the subscores are important, too. Thanks!</p>

<p>Colleges vary on this with large number just relying on the composite. However, there are many that consider the math and English subscores to be the most important of the subscores, and there are even some that consider only those two subscores and ignore all others including composite.</p>

<p>Drusba, thank you for the response. Is there any way of finding out how specific colleges approach this? It isn't something that they put on their web sites but I'd love to know whether the colleges in which my daughter is interested might approach this.</p>

<p>It is not easy. Some will put it on the website; others you just have to ask. In college visits and calling around, we found often that schools that traditionally receive far more ACT scores than SAT (those in middle of country) tend to consider the whole score. Many of those which traditionally receive far more SAT than ACT scores, like in the Northeast, tend to consider the math and English sections more important because they believe those can be compared to the two sections on the SAT and thus they can more easily compare applicants that way. What we found surprising is that some Tech schools, e.g., GTech and Rose-Hulman, consider only the math and English score (surprising because that means they ignore science even though they are tech schools). The UC's use the whole score because they convert it to an SAT equivalent for evaluation.</p>

<p>boxmaker1917, "dd"?</p>

<p>I agree with drusba... schools which don't have many ACT applicants tend to pay more attention to the individual scores than the composite. This is what I've found when I've talked to the admissions officers anyway.</p>

<p>i got a 33 english and 33 reading...are these scores more impressive than a 670 verbal? Is there a comparison?</p>

<p>What difference does it make whether schools look at subscore or only composite? Does it change the way we might prepare for the test or take it?</p>

<p>Intelliot, dd stands for "dear daughter." For future reference: "D" = Daughter, "S" = Son, "DS" = Dear Son, "DH" = Dear Husband, "DW" = I'll let you guess that one. :-)</p>

<p>Ah, thanks.</p>

<p>i always thought the first d stood for darling...</p>

<p>and I had guessed it stood for devoted...</p>

<p>I'm sure you can think of that first "d" as any word you like, as long as it's a positive term... nothing bad like "deranged" or "damn." Hehehe!</p>