<p>Is it really better in every situation for a student to go in with a freshman status vs. a transfer status in terms of scholarships?</p>
<p>Here is the situation: D is homeschooled and will graduate HS with her AA. She is doing fantastic at the community college (4.0 the entire time, honors program, extremely active in many of their programs including president of one club, etc). Unfortunately, her ACT is only a 22. </p>
<p>She can apply as a freshman and all the advisors have said she will easily get into the state university she wants to go to. Since her ACT is so low, will she really have the opportunity for multiple freshman scholarships?</p>
<p>On the other hand, she could begin taking summer classes right after graduation at our local satellite. That would allow her to finish her BS in three semesters. Her plan is to go right into a master's program so she would like to finish her undergrad as soon as possible. This option would mean she would go in as a transfer student. Is there a reason this shouldn't be an option in terms of scholarships?</p>
<p>She will not qualify for any need based scholarships.</p>
<p>Any information would be appreciated. Thanks!</p>
<p>It is VERY doubtful that she’d get much/any merit as a transfer student. Schools give merit to their incoming frosh because THAT is what helps them with rankings. Transfer students do nothing for the school.</p>
<p>That said, her ACT is also too low for any merit at many schools. Has she tried the SAT?</p>
<p>Some do much better on the SAT and often she only has to do well in the Math + CR sections. </p>
<p>Merit scholarships are generally given to students whose scores are in the Top quartile of the school. An ACT 22 is probably towards the bottom quartile of many schools. </p>
<p>I would get her into SAT/ACT tutoring pronto otherwise you may not see any merit at all. </p>
<p>Do you know why her ACT is so low? Is she not finishing sections? What is the breakdown of her composite?</p>
<p>Many of the test-optional schools require test scores for merit consideration.</p>
<p>Her test scores are so low because she is the SLOWEST test taker on the face of the earth! The ones she does answer, she generally gets right but she doesn’t come close to finishing half the test. It is an ongoing battle and she is practicing. She knows the answers but she is sooooooo slow. I think it is the perfectionist in her. The thought of skipping a question doesn’t enter her brain. She will sit there and work it out until she comes up with the correct answer. That is great in real life but it doesn’t work well on timed tests. </p>
<p>So therein lies my issue. If most merit aid is based on freshman status AND test scores, she isn’t going to qualify anyway because her test scores are too low. So at that point, is there really any reason to go in as a freshman?</p>
<p>I don’t know how to say this without it sounding bad but money isn’t a huge factor. We are far from rich but since she is getting her AA first, she has saved us a ton of money and she will be commuting for her BS which will save us a boatload. Plus, our state tuition is very reasonable. She already has a partial scholarship from our state plus one from my husband’s work. I also think she will qualify for a few other small ones. In the grand scheme of things, her undergraduate degree is going to be “cheap.” Would I like even more free money? Heck yeah! But if the only way for her to get it is to improve her test scores and that likely won’t happen, is freshman status really going to matter in the end or would it be better to get a jump start on her BS as a transfer student?</p>
<p>Many colleges offer scholarships for CC students. If she has her AA, she probably would be able to be considered for these. Check with your CC’s scholarship office - they will be able to give you information.</p>
<p>It really depends upon the school. Usually, most usually, schools focus on the freshman class in terms of any aid or merit money they have. Even those schools that guarantee to meet full need, often except transfer students. </p>
<p>However, schools that have agreements or relationships with CCs, may have some awards specifically for them. As a transfer student, the test scores do not count as heavily; it’s the grades in the college courses and the directed interest that count.</p>
<p>As an aside, it is worthwhile to get some test prep and to practice to get those scores up. It can make a difference in grad school money, professional school and a lot of other things. It can be a real impediment to test poorly. My friend’s DD who is a super achiever fell into this category, and finally addressed her issues when she realized she could not pass the bar with them. It took a year of direct work on the problem, but she has improved a lot and is now an attorney who wishes she had done this years ago it. It cost her many opportunities, scholarships and, yes, admissions to the top colleges and law schools. It wasn’t until there was no way around it that she bit the bullet and went directly to addressing her slowness on tests.</p>
<p>I want to add that there are schools out there that may have awards at nearly any test level. There is a thread in the archives that Momfromtexas started on full ride scholarships. By focusing on schools off the beaten path, she was able to find awards, full ride ones even, for her kids, and they were not all high scoring, high achievement award required awards. As a rule, most scholarships tend to be heavily on the side of test scores, and that particularly is the case for the main stream, well known schools. But once you get out of that territory and are looking at lesser known, regional options, it can be a whole other story. My son got some merit money offers from schools, with test scores like your DD and grades not as high. So, though high test scores is a generality that often holds, it is not always the case for scholarship money, and the same with funds available for transfers. It’s the individual school that determines this,</p>
<p>Thanks, again. She really is working on improving her speed. She is retaking the ACT on June 9th. Fingers crossed. In all of her math classes, she has always been the last one done on test days but she always gets A’s. She actually had the highest overall score in her last math class she just finished at the community college. She knows the stuff she just doesn’t do it fast enough. She is plugging along and trying to improve her time and I think she will. But will it be enough? Who knows?</p>
<p>since your daughter is the slowest test taker, ACT might not be the best test for her. Let her try SAT - she will have more time to answer each question and it might help her.</p>
<p>Also, I talked to my son about ACT and he told me that non-math sections are impossible to finish if you read the paragraphs first and then answer. Your daughter might not be following correct strategy while taking the test. </p>
<p>My son is very quick at recall and a very fast reader, so for him to say that he would not have time to read everything is big. He said that he basically reads the questions and then looks for a appropriate place in the text to answer. </p>
<p>Math is a different animal entirely. My son said that Math just takes practice and knowledge of all the facts. </p>
<p>I hope this helps and your daughter can increase her ACT (or she might try SAT).</p>
<p>The English portion of the test wasn’t a problem for her and her science score was actually pretty decent, if I recall correctly. The only huge problem was math and that was because she took time to check her answers and just did it slowly. I am hoping she is more prepared this time around.</p>
<p>All of her friends that are big English people like her did horribly on the SAT and better on the ACT which is why we went that route. We’ll see what she gets on it this time around and if it is still low, I’ll have her try the SAT.</p>
<p>was because she took time to check her answers and just did it slowly. I am hoping she is more prepared this time around.</p>
<p>Instruct her to check answers AFTER she’s completed a section. That’s kind of basic strategy. If she’s checking answers after she answers each question, no wonder she doesn’t finish.</p>
<p>Sit with her while she does a timed practice section. When she finishes a question, have her move to the next one. Tell her she can only “check answers” AFTER a section is complete IF THERE IS STILL TIME. </p>
<p>There isn’t time to check every answer. That’s what’s killing her. Certainly she’ll want higher scores, so use that as an incentive. </p>
<p>BTW…if she has an hopes to go to grad school, she’d going to have to overcome this anyway. The GRE is a timed test, and if she gets low scores then grad school will not happen.</p>
<p>And, frankly, once she’s in a university setting, she also may not have enough “test time” to check every answer. She may only be given enough time to just “do” every answer without checking.</p>
<p>Since your D is homeschooled, she may have become used to taking as long as she wants. And, maybe her CC lets her take extra time. She probably should get more used to timed-tests at home.</p>
<p>Since this has been going on forever, I’d suggest that you take some of your spare cash and march your daughter in to the office of the best Educational Psychologist that can be recommended by the people at her CC. What you take to be slowness because of perfectionism may well be a slow processing speed or other so-far-unidentified learning difference. With a documented LD she can request accommodations for the ACT and SAT, and she can also ask for them once she gets to her four-year institution. My dyslexic niece has grades that are off the charts if she has time to do the work, but her ACT scores with no accommodations were right about where your daughter’s are.</p>
<p>Even if the issue is not a LD, your daughter could probably use some professional encouragement for developing the drop-it-and-move-on skills required in a timed-testing environment and/or advice on handling any anxieties she may have about being less than perfect which contribute to the low test scores. I know kids who suffered from each of those tendencies as well.</p>
<p>Let me clarify. 99% of my daughter’s issues are math. Does she take her time with other tests? Yes. But she says she finishes those tests in a timely matter but always takes the time to review. </p>
<p>I can’t remember her English and reading scores on the ACT but they were very high as was her writing score. She finished those sections and had time to review. Her science score was so-so but had plenty of room for improvement and her math score was horrible. </p>
<p>She developed a math phobia at a very young age. She got to a point where she hated it, didn’t comprehend it, and thought she was horrible at it. She had true math anxiety. Unfortunately, she didn’t progress in math due to her resistance.</p>
<p>About 2 years ago, she realized that even if she does truly suck at it, if she wants to go to college she was going to need to get serious. And she did! She has come such a long way. Getting the highest score in her college algebra class was a huge boost and I am hopeful that energizes her. Unfortunately, she will still tell anyone that listens that math sucks, she hates it, and she isn’t great at it. But when she puts her mind to something, she can do it. </p>
<p>So while she may be slow at taking some tests, most of the time the slowness is just because she is going back over things that she has already completed. In math, however, it is because she still lacks confidence in the subject. I know she can do it and as long as she doesn’t freeze and convince herself that she sucks at math (based on the math section of the ACT from last time) I think she will greatly improve her score. She can’t get much lower! ;-)</p>
<p>I do not think she has any type of learning disability. I have another child with many problems and I have been through so much testing with him that I am pretty sure I would recognize anything that might pertain to my daughter.</p>
<p>wakeup13 - If the issue is just (or primarily) math, it may be worth running your daughter through a screening for dyscalculia-type issues. Just as traveling at 55 mph instead of 65 mph can make a big difference in a long car trip, a tiny little glitch in processing can have a big cumulative effect when exams have time limits.</p>
<p>But you also know that the real secret to doing better on math exams like the ACT and SAT is just to do a bazillion problems of each type that is going to appear. If she can learn to recognize the different types she will be able to deal with them more swiftly and with much greater confidence. I haven’t looked at one of those exams in years, but when I taught SAT prep, I drilled some of the basic formulae for area, volume, etc. into my poor students’ heads so that when they saw a right triangle or a cylinder they didn’t have to think twice to get to the solution.</p>
<p>But what does she think about all of this? If she enters as a freshman, how long will it take her to graduate? Will the U take all of her AA credits and give her junior status once she’s there? Will the U she is looking at give her merit aid for an ACT score of XX? If she wants to study there, and improving her ACT score to XX will be too difficult, then she may as well go the transfer route. She might prefer to quit all the exam prep so that she can do other things with that time.</p>
what are her actual scores on the various sections of the ACT? You can look them up online.
Have you done practice ACT tests at home with her, you being the “proctor” for the exam? </p>
<p>By actually proctoring the test for my son a few times, he started to understand timing better. And I was able to give him tips to move the process along. He would then practice sections of the ACT timed if he did not have time to do a whole test. Then go back and re-work the missed questions. This made a big difference for him. I also think that with the ACT, it is important to take it a few times. I do think that there is a bit of luck with what is covered in the science section. If you know the topic, you can fly through it. If not, you stop, read, become interested, and analyze the info. That really slows you down.</p>