<p>HELP!! My junior daughter just received her first ACT test scores, and it was a 26. She has never been consistent at standardized tests! Her grades are excellent...she ranks in the top 5% of her high school both weighted and unweighted and is taking a rigorous load. She wants to go into physical therapy and was hoping for a direct admit into either Marquette or SLU (and we were hoping for some scholarship $$ at both).</p>
<p>She is taking it again tomorrow (but her spirit is down) and then I'm going to pay thru the nose for private tutoring for the June 8th test. </p>
<p>Any words of wisdom from you wonderful parents??</p>
<p>An ACT of 26 puts your d at the 84%ile. This is hardly “low”. For a direct admit at the two programs mentioned, I have no idea, (I have no idea what school SLU even is? St. Louis? St. Lawrence? Southern something that starts with an L?) Anyway, I doubt she has to rule out physical therapy as a viable career option based on that ACT.</p>
<p>Agree that this is not a disaster, especially if she did not prepare before that test.
Instead of taking the ACT three times, she should also take the SAT and see how she does.</p>
<p>Private tutoring is great if you can find a quality tutor. My S had great results self-studying with an ACT prep book. I also don’t consider a 26 low, but understand her hoping for a higher school, esp. since she is considering physical therapy and those programs are competitive. S took the test 4 times, and rec’d 26, 30, 30, and 33, so self-studying definitely helped him. I think being more familiar with the test helps a lot of students on their 2nd try. Good luck!</p>
<p>*She wants to go into physical therapy and was hoping for a direct admit into either Marquette or SLU (and we were hoping for some scholarship $$ at both).
*</p>
<p>While an ACT 26 isn’t “low,” it’s not high enough for merit to Marquette or St. Louis U. To get about $15k per year from SLU, you usually need an ACT 32+ or SAT equivalent (this puts a student in the upper 25% for the school). For Marquette, the ACT usually needs to be a 30+
To give you an idea…both of my kids applied to SLU with ACT 33 and SATs over 2280 and both only got $15k per year in merit. </p>
<p>Have your D also take the SAT. Some kids do better on the SAT. Get practice books for both tests and encourage her to use them…offer some incentives. I used to treat my child and a friend to the movies if he did a practice test. </p>
<p>There are two different things going on here.</p>
<p>1) Admission into a PT program…increasing her score to ACT 28 may get her admitted to this special program, but not with any merit money.</p>
<p>2) Merit money to make the school more affordable…that typically requires scores in the upper 25% of the school…sometimes it requires scores in the upper 10% of the school to get merit of a good size. </p>
<p>These are separate issues. If money is an issue, then your D needs to protect herself by also applying to schools that you know for sure will be affordable. Neither SLU nor Marquette “meet need” so even if you qualify for some FA, you’ll likely be gapped. </p>
<p>Determine now what you can likely afford to pay each year. Determine what your likely EFC will be. For instance, if your EFC is $30k, then it’s doubtful that you’d get much or any need based aid from either school.</p>
<p>OP - I believe 26 is just fine for admission to either Marquette or Saint Louis University, so now your daughter has a baseline. But for merit aid, she will need a big step up.</p>
<p>How much did she prepare ahead of time? If it was minimal, my suggestion is to skip tomorrow and do some prep for June 8th. The ACT requires a brisk pace, and if there were sections left unfinished she can’t get a really good score. If nothing has changed in her preparation since the last test date, she may only be in for additional discouragement.</p>
<p>No experience with tutors, but I do have experience with kids sitting down with a prep book, and if they actually do the reviews and spend the time on practice tests, major score improvements are possible.</p>
<p>The SAT is a different kind of test, with different kinds of questions. It may be worth a shot, but again, I would suggest working through a practice test first. Decide whether SAT or ACT is the most favorable format, and focus just on that one.</p>
<p>I would have to say prep was minimal. this first test was definitely a baseline but in retrospect, I should have made her prepare better, because now her spirits are a bit shot. She did attend the school sponsored ACT prep class, but there was not much to it. It seems like the writing portion of the test is WAY different than how her teachers grade. She can’t skip tomorrow…It’s the in-school one. I hadn’t considered the SAT for her…we’ll have to consider that. Sryrstress…wow what gains!! That is definitely a feel good story…Thanks for sharing.</p>
<p>My son enjoyed this quick youtube video and more specifically the ones on the right side of the screen about reading, math, etc. after you open the 5th one down by brightstorm2 </p>
<p>CC rules will not allow me to send you the link so if you copy and paste and then remove the space between you and tube it should work. Otherwise I just went to the main youtube website, entered in ACT and it is about the 5th one (blue screen)</p>
<p>I agree with siliconvalley mom. Have her try the SAT next, see how she does. That way she can tell which test is her gig and then she can focus practicing on that to nail it.</p>
<p>My D had the best score boost with practice books, esp for the science test. She did self timed tests over and over and on test day I am sure it helped relieve some anxiety. 6 point boost on the science, 3 point boost overall.
26 is a good score with minimal prep!
Best of luck!</p>
<p>My son’s score was lower than your D’s and he did well in admissions this year. He did have good grades and was taking difficult courses. He included Fairtest schools on his list, schools where he would be competitive and some formula schools where it was a really a coin flip. </p>
<p>However, for certain programs that are formula driven for acceptance, it can be an issue. It would be helpful to get the stats for such programs. Many highly selective programs can be in schools that are not very selective, and getting into them is not the same task as getting into the school in general. </p>
<p>As for merit, it is very often tied to test scores. My son did not do well in that area, whereas his high scoring brothers with much lower GPAs made out much better.</p>
<p>You all have helped more than you know. YOU’re absolutely right!! 26 is not that bad!!! Especially when she’s proven herself to be a good student overall. Sometimes we get caught up and we forget that in the scheme of things, it’s still in the upper 17%. </p>
<p>Her brother has killed it for her…she can’t compete with him academically, never could, and it makes her feel a bit inferior. But the truth is, she is a harder worker, more organized, more serious student than he ever was…And my guess is she will be very successful because of sheer determination…that trait goes a long way!! Thanks!!</p>
<p>For Marquette if she has a lot of community service that will help with a portion of merit aid. To help her get into the PT program at Marquette I would recommend her to try shadow a PT that seems to help. The PT program is very competitive for a direct admit.</p>
<p>Has she prepped for the test tomorrow? If not, you may be able to change the test date to June 8. We changed one at the last minute a few years ago but I can’t remember how close is was to the test date when we made the change. When our kiddos retook standardized tests with no prep, their scores changed very little. For ACT, 2 of my kids brought their composite scores up from an unprepped 28 to a 31 with the following method (this was their only prep): A week before the scheduled test, they took a practice test (timed) at home and scored it. On each of four different evenings prior to the test date, I sat down with them and thoroughly reviewed the questions they had missed on one section of the practice test, the reasons their answers were incorrect, and how to best guess an answer if the choices have been narrowed down to two. We were pleasantly surprised with the results.</p>
<p>BTW, you are correct in that a 26 will not be competitive for a direct admit into PT. Oldest d was a direct admit to PT and I think the minimum ACT they considered was a 28. Previous exposure to PT (jobshadowing), great grades, and superior writing and interviewing skills were emphasized as very important. In retrospect ( she is graduating with her DPT in 2 weeks), she is very glad she took the direct admit. Direct admit relieved the anxiety of applying and allowed her to begin the graduate program her senior year, thus reducing the number of years of schooling by one year. Saved time and money- yeah! And the job opportunities are limitless right now.</p>
<p>Two years ago we had a neighbor girl get a 28 on the February test and a 33 just two months later. My son just got a 34 on the April test after a 30 in December. He did very minimal prep. It may be that your daughter will do much better next time just because she is more comfortable with the format and timing. Good Luck!</p>
<p>I’m not a parent, but I’ve got some words of wisdom. It is going to be up to your daughter alone to do well. If she is not driven to get a higher score, it will not happen. </p>
<p>For me, I went from a 30-33, but for my friend, he jumped from 25-31. Buy your daughter “The Real ACT” (red book) and Princeton Review’s “Cracking the ACT”. EVERY SINGLE NIGHT, make her do one section. Then, on Friday (once all 4 sections have been taken) make her memorize her mistakes. It is not enough to see that she got the question wrong, she must know WHY she got it wrong. With persistance, anyone can score increadibly high on the ACT.</p>
<p>My d. had a lower ACT (and SAT) than your d., and got into every school but one she applied to. At the one she is graduating from in three years with an almost 4.0 GPA, she would be clearly in the bottom 15% of accepted students. Didn’t hurt her in the least.</p>
<p>She took both several times. Studied. Got all the books. Prep course. Etc. Worked hard! Never did any better than the first time.</p>
<p>For graduate school, she took her standardized tests and did even worse than she had on the ACT/SAT. Applied to a single graduate school. The day after she applied, she received a call from the Dean of Admissions. “Were you sick when you took it?” he asked. “No,” she replied, “just don’t do well on these. Same happened for undergraduate. But as you can see from the rest of my record, it doesn’t impact my performance in the least.” “No, I guess it doesn’t,” said the Dean, “Would you let us waive your scores?” “Be my guest,” she replied. She received her acceptance two days later. </p>
<p>Your standardized test score may not be a test of your intelligence, nor does it have to determine your fate.</p>
<p>I got a 27 on my ACT ( i know a point higher) and I was still admitted to Marquette. I got a lot of scholarship money from them too. Test scores aren’t as important when your courses are very rigorous - as mine were. I also got into ND and Uchicago with that score. I was pretty shocked, but it’s possible. For sure have her take it again. Colleges like to see that you’ve tried a few times. That’s what helped me, the fact that I took it twice.</p>
<p>In the meantime, I feel really guilty not getting her more help with preparing. As I am now researching it, I find that 1/2 the neighborhood is paying thru the nose for private tutoring, and I had no idea. I just wish I had done it already so she’d be ready for the (mandatory) test tomorrow. It’s the Illinois State prairie state exam and ACT…which is required on this test date for every junior in the state. I’m hoping it increases by a point or two anyway. Then the big gain hopefully in June!!</p>
<p>Congrats to your D, Mini My son is similar. Not as high flying as yours in acceptances and awards, but got inoto his first choice and was happy with options. He is in the lower quarter for test scores for a lot of the schools that accepted him. </p>
<p>To the OP, just make sure you have some varied options. We did because we had no idea how things would work out for him and we knew that the test scores were not going to be up there. We applied to more schools than we would have otherwise, because in addition to that issue, we had a cap on what we could pay. 15 schools with one WL and one rejection, with 3 accepts that were unaffordable was what we ended up getting with 10 affordable choices but some where he would have to borrow and/or commute. One full tuition. Not bad for a 24 ACT.</p>