Greetings, my child has a composite score of 32 (math 29, science 32,english 33, reading 35). Her reach schools interested are Colgate, Vassar, RPI (first choice) who won’t (I’m told) even look at her application. She’s been advised to retake the ACT to improve math scores. Unfortunately, she has a very heavy course load and and 15 hour/week relevant internship, and limited time to prep. This may be impossible to answer, but can anyone give me a rough idea of how many hours she needs to prep for math to raise her score to 30-31 from 29, or share your experiences? She ran out of time, as many kids do. Thank you!
Running out of time is probably the easiest fix. Just drill timed practice test math sections. Set aside some day(s) and time periods, like Sunday morning. Hopefully she will get more familiar with common patterns and spend less time figuring out what the question is asking. The other thing is to gain discipline in skipping questions that initially stump you (and come back to it after finishing the rest of the section). Getting an easy question correct carries the same scoring weight as getting a hard one correct. A lot of kids (especially high performers) will obsess over a question(s) early or in the middle of the exam and then rush and miss easy ones afterwards because they run out of time.
If she is going to take the ACT again, I agree she has to practice timed tests. But, I don’t think she needs to take it again. An ACT of 32 is competitive at all those schools, going by class of 2022 profiles. Colgate and Vassar 25/75 range is 31-34. I don’t See RPI’s ACT scores yet, but average SAT was 1409 which is 31 ACT. All these schools will evaluate applications holistically so ACT is just a part of the review. You can see how important at each school by looking at the common data sets, some may even break out where the 29 Math ACT relatively falls. If she has taken rigorous math courses and has good grades, again, I would consider not taking the test again. Focus on essays and getting good first semester grades.
Also, your student will have a gender advantage at RPI, where they want more females and the female acceptance rate is higher than for males. The opposite is true at Vassar.