<p>Just4MomOf4 - what school is your younger daughter attending?</p>
<p>2Leashes, I don’t want to be Debbie Downer, but just a heads up - ACT scores tend to me more “stable” than SAT scores. A 2 point move would be pretty impressive, to get your hopes up beyond that might be setting your D up for a disappointment. It’s just not as coachable of a test as the SAT.</p>
<p>D took ACT twice, and felt like the 2nd time went much better. Result? same composite score. Up one point in math, down one point in writing - despite feeling like she had done better. From what I hear that’s not unusual (and in my mind it speaks to the ACT actually being a more reliable test than the SAT).</p>
<p>Best of luck to your D, regardless!</p>
<p>You have a good point, Lafalum84. Since the ACT is set up to be more like what they’re learning in school…some kids often only absorb just so much and no more. I also think in my D’s case, she doesn’t put a lot of prep into the ACT. But, would it really help? She didn’t raise her SAT score much, either. She’s just not into these timed tests, period. </p>
<p>Thanks for your kind and encouraging words!</p>
<hr>
<p>Lafalum84 wrote:</p>
<p>2Leashes, I don’t want to be Debbie Downer, but just a heads up - ACT scores tend to me more “stable” than SAT scores. A 2 point move would be pretty impressive, to get your hopes up beyond that might be setting your D up for a disappointment. It’s just not as coachable of a test as the SAT.</p>
<p>D took ACT twice, and felt like the 2nd time went much better. Result? same composite score. Up one point in math, down one point in writing - despite feeling like she had done better. From what I hear that’s not unusual (and in my mind it speaks to the ACT actually being a more reliable test than the SAT).</p>
<p>Best of luck to your D, regardless!</p>
<p>"I also think in my D’s case, she doesn’t put a lot of prep into the ACT. But, would it really help? "</p>
<p>I don’t know, my daughter didn’t do much prep either. As we walked around a campus this summer that she absolutely loved, she swore up and down that she was going to do a lot of test prep to get her ACT score up because she REALLY wanted this school to admit her and now that she had a goal she would be more motivated. Sounded great at the time, but… never happened. </p>
<p>Still, her ACT score “converted” to an SAT score that was 190 points higher than her actual SAT score, and her ACT percentile is 15 points higher than her SAT percentile.</p>
<p>I think there are some kids who do great on both ACT & SAT, some who don’t do well on either, and some who do better on the ACT. I’ve never heard of a kid who did well on the SAT and bombed the ACT, unless it was the science section. And some colleges don’t count the ACT science section. (Since SAT doesn’t have science, they don’t think it’s fair to count the ACT’s science).</p>
<p>Really, Lafalum? Do you have any idea which colleges actually discount the science score, because without that section, D’s ACT composite would be 2 points higher. That’s a huge deal.</p>