ACT: Would this ruin my chances?

Hi, I’m about to go into senior year. I took the old SAT and got 2210 not superscored which was great. Except that I want to apply to CalTech and only got 700 in Math (770 Writing, 740 Reading). I made stupid mistakes and I can’t take it again. If I take the ACT and get a decent composite (eg: 34 total, 35M, 34E, 33R, 34S) would this be okay? Also, if I ended up with a low composite but a high math score, could my ACT and SAT support each other?
Thanks!

Hello - I’m a current senior at Caltech. Taking the ACT and getting a good score certainly cannot hurt you, and it seems that a strong math score on the ACT could show the admissions committee that your analogous score on the SAT was just the result of a “bad” day (relatively speaking). Thus, I would recommend taking the ACT.

I don’t know of any college that will take parts of the SAT and ACT to get a combined idea. It’s one or the other. If you can’t retake the SAT then you’ll need to do well on the ACT.