How Important is the Composite Score???

<p>Let's say you have a composite of a 28, but have two different situations. Which is better?</p>

<p>Situation # 1: You have two good scores (28 and 34) but two not-so-good scores (24, 25).</p>

<p>Situation # 2: All your scores are around 28 (27, 27, 29, 29).</p>

<p>Situation # 1 is where I find myself currently. A composite of 28 should be good enough for the colleges I want, but I'm concerned because of the 24 and 25 I got. But I also got a 28 and 34, which I'm happy about.</p>

<p>Do colleges just care about the composite, or will my two lower scores hurt me even though my composite is just above average for the college?</p>

<p>From what I heard, for the ACT it’s the composite score they care about. For the SAT it’s the section scores they are concerned about. So, in the end, you’re fine.</p>

<p>Dude, I AM situation 2: (27, 27, 29, 30). But yeah, they don’t care about individual scores. But if you haven’t submitted your application or anything else yet, it wouldn’t hurt to get a prep book and try to get that 24 and 25 up to par. You could still take the September 2012 test.</p>

<p>What’s the worse than can happen? If you do better, great! If you do worse, then shred that thing up and never speak of it again lol.</p>

<p>Thanks for the replies, guys. I’m currently debating if I should take it again. I probably will.</p>

<p>The composite score is all that matters. If you take the ACT more than once, the scores may be ‘superscored’ (this depends on the college’s policy) i.e the highest scores are combined to give the composite score.</p>

<p>If, and only if, the school represents the subscores on their common data set, they usually look at math and english to match up against the SAT (M/CR)…</p>

<p>otherwise, as mentioned above, the composite rules…</p>

<p>don’t shoot the messenger on this one though; I don’t think the ACT english is a good match up with the SAT CR, but I have been told time and time again that I am wrong…</p>

<p>How is it known that the composite score is all that matters? Why wouldn’t colleges look at the individual components like they do for the SAT?</p>

<p>They look at composite, math, english, and writing scores. The composite score is probably the most heavily used.</p>