<p>Or does the score matter? Like I got a 30 (retaking....) and it's 96th percentile, which doesn't seem so bad....so if I'm applying to top schools like JHU or Penn, would I be at a disadvantage if I send this score in?</p>
<p>Percentile means more than the score. If a 20 was a 99% it would be amazing regardless of being 16 points below the highest (it’s not though :D).</p>
<p>30 is decent, but not good enough for any of those schools unless you did some amazing extracurricular things like: saving a population of squirrel monkeys in Thailand, building churches for a new religion you decided to make, or donating huge sums of money to the college of your choice (gotta have rich parents ;o). With a normal set of classes and a decent amount of community service, you would still need like a 32+ (99%) to have a chance-- put anything is possible. You could still make it in theoretically, but the odds are really against you (depends on your major and ethnicity too).</p>
<p>I have a 32 and I don’t think i’m gonna get in either of the 2 schools.</p>
<p>I disagree. Percentiles on the ACT are misleading due to lack of score distribution. </p>
<p>A 2130 on the SAT puts you in the top 3% of scorers whereas a 32 on the ACT is the top 1%, even though they are basically equivalent. </p>
<p>Focus on the score in relation to a specific college.</p>
<p>@Gator, that’s because a 32 isn’t a 2130-- more around a 2150-2160.
The only reason why some charts consider a 32 to be a 2130 is because of ACT to SAT bias. Different colleges have different conversion charts, so it’s hard to say noting the wide descrepancy in estimation tables for converting between the ACT and SAT.</p>
<p>Percentiles still matter and this is also true.
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<p>I don’t understand this however.
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<p>look at averages. most “average” for top schools is around 30-31. that means there is SOME people scoring UNDER.</p>
<p>As I said, it depends on your major. The average for the school does not reflect each major.</p>