Is it detrimental in any way to send all your ACT scores to colleges???

Test Preparation ACT Preparation
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<p>Alright, I took the ACT this Februuary and received a 31 Composite with a 9 on the Writing. When I registered for this test, I decided to send my scores to four colleges since I thought that was the norm due to the service being free. Now my friends are telling me that I made a huge mistake since you're supposedly only supposed to send your HIGHEST ACT score to colleges and should hide the fact that you took the test multiple times.</p>

<p>At first, I was like what the **** are you guys talking about and then I unfortuantely realized that the schools I sent my scores to were the University of Mcihigan, Harvard University, Princeton University, and the University of Pennsylvania. Yeahh, probably not the smartest idea in the world...:(</p>

<p>Any advice???</p>

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<p>My advice is not to beat yourself up about this one. You can't do anything about it now. Besides 31 is a very good score. If you improve it on a subsequent test, you can send that.</p>

<p>I think colleges realize that students often take these tests more than once. The schools also always say they look at the top scores anyway.</p>

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<p>Advice? Is there really any advice to give? You can't change it now. You did fine anyway. I scored pretty close to you. 30 composite, 10 writing.</p>

<p>I didn't send my score to colleges when I took it in October. I'm glad I didn't, because I believe I can do better. Of course, now I have to take it again and I'm too lazy to sign up.</p>

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<p>I registered for ACT the other day and put down all sorts of colleges. Obviously colleges know that you only send high scores and that you do take it multiple times. You have nothing to lose sending the scores to colleges.</p>

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<p>Hi. Don't worry about the ACT too much. I don't think the top colleges take this test seriously at all if your SAT score is high. </p>

<p>If your ACT much better than your SAT, I still think they just look at your SAT I score ..... Perhaps the only time they really look at the ACT is if you did not submit SAT I scores and they have no alternative. If you are from the East coast-- you will be considered "suspect" for not having taken the SAT and that may count against you unless you are a nobel laureate......</p>

<p>My d sent her 34 ACT which is the equivalent of a 1510 SAT out to 7 top school s-- and so far, she has gotten no early write letters from any Ivy-- and all her other stats are strong..... </p>

<p>This is what leads me to believe that top schools don't respect a high ACT score ..... I just wish I had known this little fact.... but I am happy to share it here..... so that students and parents don't waste time, gasoline and money on the ACT test if they are applying to a top college.....</p>

<p>All energy should be devoted to the SAT I and not the ACT.....</p>

<p>Anybody here disagree?</p>

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<p>My daughter is at an Ivy and only sent in an ACT score. So I think it is anecdote against anecdote. Plus you don't even know if your daughter has been admitted or not at this point. My daughter didn't get any likely letters from the selective places she got into -- she only heard the final decisions. A friend of hers that got into a different Ivy didn't get a likely letter either.</p>

<p>There was a thread a while back about other people getting into Ivies with the ACT. So it does happen. It probably doesn't happen more often because people feel like they need to take the SAT to apply to them.</p>

<p>I don't see any reason for colleges to lie. They can have a stated preference, and many used to but dropped them. Why, if they continue to secretly have a preference? I asked every college if they had a preference and they all denied it.</p>

<p>I don't know that taking the ACT in SAT country is somehow suspect. I've never heard a college say that, just people speculating. (Oh, how people around here thought my daughter was "risking it" by taking the ACT.) My daughter did and it didn't appear to hurt her. I think colleges now realize that both tests are essentially national. The score conversion chart is based on students who took both tests so I don't see why colleges wouldn't accept its validity. I talked to an ad comm one time and he said that the conversion is done by an administrative person and the admissions committee at his school doesn't even see that an applicant took the ACT, rather than the SAT.</p>

<p>What Kaplan says about this subject: <a href="http://www.math.com/students/kaplan/satoract.html%5B/url%5D"&gt;http://www.math.com/students/kaplan/satoract.html&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p>

<p>I realize this is a hard time for you right now, waiting for decisions. BTDT! I think it is common to second guess what your child has done, if not the testing, then classes taken, essay topic, or whatever. But try not to panic before you even know the decisions! And realize that there are kids with great SAT and other stats that don't get into Ivies, too -- or haven't received likely letters.</p>

<p>The OP is from Michigan, right? This isn't even SAT country.</p>

<p>Looking at the original post again, I see that one school listed is Princeton. Depending on where you look on their web site, Princeton either does or does not have a preference for the SAT. (One place says they take either; one place says they take the ACT if every other place being applied to requires the ACT). So get that clarified before applying to that school, in case you need the SAT I.</p>

<p>Schools vary in terms of whether the ACT is accepted in lieu of SAT II scores.</p>

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<p>I guess it depends on where you live to. The majority of the students on the west of the Mississippi take the ACT, and not the SAT. On the east of the Mississippi, the majority of the students take the SAT, not the ACT. It really depends on where you are at.</p>

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<p>what scores did you all receive that got you admitted to the ivy's...also we can send the scores for free after we see them? when I registered I did not put any schools.</p>

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<p>Re: ACT scores for Ivies, see <a href="http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/showthread.php?t=124661%5B/url%5D"&gt;http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/showthread.php?t=124661&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p>

<p>My daughter had a 30 and this was sufficient for Brown. I've read elsewhere that Brown looks at subscores. Math and science aren't relevant to her planned field; the average of the other scores was 33. She didn't get into Penn or Yale, but this could have been the summer classes at Brown and the recommendations by Brown professors. It was pretty clear her preference was for Brown from this and her choice of concentration. Or it could have been something else -- no one score is going to be a guaranteed admit to the most selective places!</p>

<p>You can only arrange for the free score reports before you take the test. Afterwards, you have to pay. But it isn't that much ...</p>

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<p>Diane
I am so happy that your daughter got into Brown with a 30 ACT and I certainly respect your view that this score probably helped her get in.</p>

<p>I have hope that my daughter will get into a top institution-- she deserves it too and I think top grades and an ACT of 34 should mean that she will be an asset wherever she goes.
I just hope that all her hard work is not in vain-- she sacrificed so much over the past 4 years and worked so ridiculously hard... </p>

<p>My advice still stands to students interested in attending a top school, who do not have have the resources to attend summer school there: put more energy into boosting your SAT above 2200, rather than ACT if you are interested in a top eastern college..... If you have prepped sufficiently for SAT, then by all means, take the ACT, but if you run out of time, devote your prep time to SAT...... ACT is a long test that often requires a longer drive, and also require prep time which takes away from time that could be used for SAT or an additional SAT II or AP exam.</p>

<p>I guess its all about good time management amid dozens of tests..... just my humble opinion....</p>

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<p>clayvessel,</p>

<p>Please do post how your daughter does. I have a feeling she will end up somewhere she'll be happy. She is obviously a strong candidate. </p>

<p>My daughter took practice tests for both the SAT and ACT and performed substantially higher on the latter. She also liked the format better and the presence of score choice, plus it was equally convenient to take. Now the format isn't that different, so I think someone could study for one or the other and do about the same. The biggest difference in subject matter is the ACT's science reasoning, but this is something rather difficult to study for.</p>

<p>She didn't do as well on the SAT IIs (probably a combination of mismatch between textbook and test, plus nerves from lack of much high stakes testtaking). If she had gone the SAT I and II route, I doubt she would have gotten into the schools she did.</p>

<p>On the other hand, my son prepped for the SAT, then got a score he didn't like. He took the ACT without prep and did better, then took the SAT again and did as well as he had on the ACT. So he sent in both scores.</p>

<p>The ACT was not only a probable help for my daughter. It was the only test she submitted. Her grades from Brown were her only grades. We homeschooled and most of what was in the application was purely qualitative (the regular essays and list of ECs, plus extra outside recommendations, book list, work product evaluated by a professional in her prospective field, etc).</p>

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<p>clayvessel, you an incorrect in assuming that, since your daughter hasn't gotten an early write from any ivy, that ACTs aren't taken as seriously as SATs.</p>

<p>34 is a terrific score, but (typically) 1550+ students with great extracurriculars are the ones who get the likely letters. Dartmouth sends out of the greatest number of likely letters and if you check the stats, they have higher than 1510 SAT scores. The equivalent NEW SAT score to a 34 is about a 2270/2280. People who have gotten early writes (excluding URM and athlete candidates) have at least low 2300s. Yale said that they only send around 100 early writes, so unless your daughter is in the top .3%, and Dartmouth sends around 500, which is around the top top 3%. Honestly, 34 and very solid ECs are very good, but there are plenty more kids in the top few percent of applicants who definitely have higher scores, whether it be ACT or SAT, and probably have equally or more compelling profiles.</p>

<p>If there's a conversion chart that the SAT company made which they state is an accurate system of comparing scores, this proves that the scores are interchangeable. Former Dartmout hand Harvard admissions officers have indicated in books that the tests are interchangeable and that there is a standard table that each school has. The only school which seems to have a bias is Princeton (though I called and received the answer that they're interchangeable), but no other college states that they have a bias because there is a standardized conversion chart that they use to turn ACT scores into the SAT scores.</p>

<p>Back to Princeton. Though on their site they do say if all your other colleges only take the ACT, then you can send it, on another area of their site (<a href="http://www.princeton.edu/pr/admissions/u/brief/5QandA.htm%5B/url%5D"&gt;http://www.princeton.edu/pr/admissions/u/brief/5QandA.htm&lt;/a&gt;) it says they take it as a replacement to the SAT. I'm sure others have called, and I have yet to hear of an admissions officer NOT saying they're interchangeable.</p>

<p>Also, there is some talk going around about how sending ACT from an SAT state is suspect. However, first of all, that is simply one admissions officer talking about one admissions office. We've already had an example at Brown University where that's not the case. Plus, only Duke, Brown, Yale, and Penn out of the ivies/top places even allow ACT in lieu of SAT 1 and SAT 2s. More importantly, that's taken TOTALLY out of context. In many Midwest states, where it's ACT country, there aren't too many SAT 1 takers and VERY few SAT 2 takers. In SAT country, it's the opposite, especially with 2s. Yale's Shaw is talking about how if a person doesn't submit SAT 1 or SAT 2 from an SAT state, then that could cast doubts on whether 2s were good. However, there is no reason that there is any bias with ACT and Sat 2, because the SAT 1 is replaced but the subject matter tests remain.</p>

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<p>Huh, I hadn't heard about what Shaw had said. Was this recently? Do you happen to have a link?</p>

<p>Oh well, my daughter didn't really want to go to Yale anyway and really debated with herself whether to even apply. But when only four schools in the country have anything close to what she wants to study she pretty much had to apply to them all (and find some others to apply to as well, since the four were three Ivies and Chicago).</p>

<p>I guess it could have been the absence of SAT IIs that created the problem, instead of all the Brown stuff in dd's application. But then I haven't heard of any homeschoolers making it into Yale other than a concert violinist. I have heard of a number making it into Harvard, Princeton, Stanford, MIT, etc. So it could have been that.</p>

<p>It is impossible to know for sure why admission decisions are reached the way they are. </p>

<p>Penn used to say on its web site that it had limited experience with admitting people just with the ACT. But this doesn't seem to be there anymore.</p>

<p>If my daughter were applying today she would probably have taken both tests, because what she disliked the most about the SAT I has been taken out and what she did best in the ACT has been added to the SAT I. But she's in where she really wanted to go, doing fine ... and I'm so glad she is my youngest so I don't have to go through all this again!</p>

<p>Then again, both my kids are looking at graduate school and the College Board is the one who does the GRE (and there is no alternative). So we're not out of the woods yet ...</p>

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<p><a href="http://www.usatoday.com/news/education/2004-08-16-sat-act_x.htm%5B/url%5D"&gt;http://www.usatoday.com/news/education/2004-08-16-sat-act_x.htm&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p>

<p>DianeR, that's the link to the article. A while back.</p>

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<p>Thanks a lot! An interesting article ... I wonder why so many more applicants to U Penn submitted both tests but so few did to Yale?</p>

<p>I'm not going to worry about one adcomm's comment from 2004. You know, if Yale wants SAT IIs from everyone they could just say so, like Harvard has. Yeesh ...</p>

<p>Anyway, nice to know my family's been part of a growing trend.</p>

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<p>It's incredibly annoying when you say you've taken the ACTs and people act as though you've cheated the system or done something wrong. The fact of the matter is that it's another area where the proper foresight can have a great impact on the admissions decision. Test scores, no matter what anyone says, are the most important factor in academic evaluation once students are of a certain caliber in grades and rigor.</p>

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<p>hyper--</p>

<p>You said:
"Honestly, 34 and very solid ECs are very good, but there are plenty more kids in the top few percent of applicants who definitely have higher scores, whether it be ACT or SAT, and probably have equally or more compelling profiles."</p>

<p>Thanks for the uplifting comments. I am assuming that Brown thinks a 30 is sufficient for admission, so I'll let you know where my d gets in.... Also, 34 is in the top 1% of all test takers, and my d got a 35 in the science section which is excellent....</p>

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<p>Clayvessel, you TOTALLY misunderstood my post. I did NOT mean to diminish the value of the achievements, but I did want to portray reality. The bottom line is: just because someone didn't get an ivy league likely letter with a 34 score doesn't mean that the ACT is not nearly as accepted as the SAT. There haven't been any counterrarguments to my reasons as to why the ACT is held equally to the SAT, so I'll try to clarify my last post talking about likely letters so that you realize I wasn't attacking you at all, simply telling the truth.</p>

<p>"I am assuming that Brown thinks a 30 is sufficient for admission, so I'll let you know where my d gets in"-- The girl who got in with a 30 could have been a URM. But I know for a fact that that girl applied in Egyptology and had experience germane to that INCREDIBLY obscure major that ONLY BROWN offers. She was a perfect match, an extremely rare candidate, probably the ONLY one or two that year. Compare that to the thousands of kids who apply to ivies with 35+. </p>

<hr>

<h2>"Also, 34 is in the top 1% of all test takers, and my d got a 35 in the science section which is excellent" -- I don't dispute the truth in that statement, it's just that being in the top 1% of test takers isn't AT ALL a guarantee of an ivy league LIKELY LETTER. Of the MILLIONS of kids who take the ACT and SAT, thousands will have 35+ and 1550+. Of course, these kids are going to be applying to ivies. Also, you've got huge amounts of legacy kids and recruited athletes who get preference BEFORE regular academic admits. And, from the tens of thousands of high schools, there are thousands of valedictorians, many of whom will be applying to ivies. And if you are not a URM, chances will be even worse. URMs get 200+ free points on their SATs, so even a 2100 URM will beat out a non-URM 34. These facts aren't speculation; it's from a reputable princeton study (<a href="http://opr.princeton.edu/faculty/Tje/EspenshadeSSQPtII.pdf)%5B/url%5D"&gt;http://opr.princeton.edu/faculty/Tje/EspenshadeSSQPtII.pdf)&lt;/a>. Finally, remember that likelies are only given to the top fraction of a percent of applicants in most cases. At Dartmouth it's around 3%. So think of all the high scoring legacies, valedictorians, athletes, and simply perfect scorers who come in line before a very good student with a 34. My friend with a 2370 SAT 1, two perfect SAT 2s, 4.0 in the hardest classes, and very solid ECs did not get a likely from dartmouth. That doesn't mean that the SATs are taken as nonsense by admissions or that he isn't excellent. I, like your daughter, got a 34 with a 35 on the science section, so if you really think I'm attacking you, you're dead wrong.</h2>

<p>All this being said, not getting a likely letter from an ivy IS NOT A FAILURE and doesn't prove that the ACT is bunk. It's simply a product of the competition. It would not be surprising for a 34 kid with great ECs to get into the Ivy League. </p>

<p>I sincerely hope that my posts haven't offended you, but have helped you to understand reality and realize that there is a substantial chance of positive results on March 30th.</p>

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<p>No, my daughter (the budding Egyptologist) isn't an URM and had no other hook. I will accept that she is "extremely rare" :) </p>

<p>You can look up the middle 50 percent range of ACT scores for particular colleges. 30 is within that range for Brown. 33 (dd's average for the English and reading sections -- Brown is a school that reportedly does analyze subscores) is at or above that range. I believe people in the thread I linked to offered such ranges. But lots of people within that range didn't get in, too!</p>

<p>Admissions to highly competitive places aren't strictly numbers driven based on the SAT/ACT scores. You will always find folks with lower scores admitted, while others with higher scores don't make it. Of course, the higher the scores the higher percentage of kids who make it in. But there is no way of knowing whether everything else is equal between the applications. The kids with higher scores may tend to have higher grades, better essays or recommendations, more distinctive ECs or awards, etc. </p>

<p>The link to the Princeton study doesn't work for me. Is this a study just for Princeton or for all Ivies? Actually, the issue of how numbers-driven Ivies are is a subject on another thread. Someone wanted to know if s/he should go for a non-AP course of particular interest (I believe it was microbiology), or an AP course because they are given an extra 2 points of weighting in determining GPA and therefore class rank. My speculation was that Harvard, Yale, Princeton, and Penn are the more stats-conscious, while a place like Brown is more holistic in its admissions decisions.</p>

<p>34 is excellent, folks. It isn't a slam dunk to get in everywhere, but I would be very surprised if there wasn't some good news come April. And a student can only attend one college. Does it really matter if EVERYWHERE s/he applies did or did not admit?</p>

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<p>What is the Policy about sending the ACT scores? is it best score from a sitting or best scores from each section?</p>