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Hers is on the on a weekday at the end of this month, not a national testing day. I’m not sure why? They did the PLAN and EXPLORE the same way.</p>
<p>What? How can the ACT be given on a day other then a national testing day, and more then a week later? I’ve heard of alternate days for the PSAT but not one of the big tests.</p>
<p>It appears to be part of the “Prairie State Achievement Examination” - a two-day set of tests sponsored by the Illinois State Board of Education, administered on April 28-29. The first of the two days just consists of a special administration of the ACT. Here’s a link: [Prairie</a> State Achievement Examination (PSAE) - ISBE Student Assessment](<a href=“http://www.isbe.state.il.us/assessment/psae.htm]Prairie”>http://www.isbe.state.il.us/assessment/psae.htm)</p>
<p>It’s an official ACT exam apparently administered (?) by the school district. There are specific dates for school and state ACT exams that do not coincide with the national testing dates. Obviously it’s a different test than what they give the students on April 10th. I found some information about it on the ACT site, but I had to look around a lot in order to find it.</p>
<p>BTW we are in Oregon.</p>
<p>Edit: found it. Look at the bottom of the page where it says scores from other test locations. It mentions state, school and DANTES. This is a school testing location. We won’t be able to see her scores online until after she receives her paper score report in the mail. <a href=“http://www.actstudent.org/scores/early/index.html[/url]”>http://www.actstudent.org/scores/early/index.html</a></p>
<p>Hi All - Longtime lurker, first time poster here. S1 is a HS junior. Our statewide, mandated ACT date is April 28 this year. It’s causing endless confusion because the date does not appear on the ACT site’s list of test dates. Many people (including S1) thought the state date was April 10 until very recently . . .</p>
<p>Wow, just spent a few minutes on Naviance. What great information it offers regarding where kids from my S’s school have been accepted/waitlisted/denied vs their stats. I can’t wait to spend more time on it.</p>
<p>Maybe helpful to those whose kids are looking to improve their essay score: D1 told me that she had two essay topics in mind before the SAT test date. She decided that she’d make those fit the prompt. They were something historical which she could torque around to be about (American?) values, which she said is a pretty common prompt theme. Then, when she started the test, she didn’t need to cast around for a general theme.</p>
<p>She pulled a 12 on the essay, so the strategy seems to have worked, or helped. Your mileage may vary.</p>
<p>Did anyone else find the ACT scoring method interesting…
…meaning that a 36 is a perfect test–not one error,
and a 35 is with missing one…of say 70 or so…etc…
…then as you get down a bit it goes to wide “ranges”…no “range” at the very top.</p>
<p>Well, D1 did about what she thought on SAT…superb on CR, horrible math and fair on writing. She’ll definitely be retaking in June. Unfortunately, doesn’t seemed to have spurned her to study for her FIRST ever ACT this Sat. She’s been very busy with other things but STILL…sigh.</p>
<p>Our County in Florida is also having all the Juniors take the SAT on a school day in April paid with our local tax money. They are trying to encourage college attendance.</p>
<p>I just spent about an hour on college web sites, trying to get COA and scholarship info. I HATE the websites where there’s no button to press for “Tuition” or “COA”, where you have to actually go to the index to find “tuition” to find out how much it costs. I also hate the schools that don’t give you a clue of how much their merit scholarships are or what you have to do (exept “excel”) to get them.</p>
<p>missypie - try using the search box on the college’s home page, and type in “cost of attendance”. When the COA is buried, that often helps me find it.</p>
<p>You can also use google, adding site:schoolname.edu to indicate you’re just searching for that term on the website schoolname.edu. For instance, putting
cost of attendance site:gwu.edu
in the google search box will end up making your hair stand on end :eek:</p>
<p>Yeah, I’ve found it everywhere; it’s just that I think it’s a bad sign when they make you search high and low for the cost.</p>
<p>^^I agree----it’s like restaurant menus with “market price” listed… </p>
<p>Last night LuckyBoy told me his target M+CR score, so I was just on Naviance checking scattergrams. I was interested to find that no one from his school has ever (well, since 2004!) been admitted to Dartmouth or to Harvard (two waitlists there), one Brown, a few Yalies, and oodles of Cornell, Penn and Princeton. The only Ivy that really fits ds is Brown, but I’m not sure if he’s interested in applying or just finds the school interesting. </p>
<p>SlitheyTove, thanks for sharing your dd’s essay strategy. Haven’t yet broached THAT topic with ds, though I know his AP Lang teacher has had the kids practicing for both SAT and AP writing all year.</p>
<p>Does anyone here’s school have Naviance that allows guest access? I know it’s not the same as my school but it would be interesting to check out either way.</p>
<p>CIA,
See Slithy Toves post # 1309 on page 88 of this thread, she gives a link to naviance data that you can access.</p>
<p>missypie, I totally agree, there’s no reason that something as basic as tuition and R&B costs should be difficult to find. Once you get to the FA page, it should be one of the main options. And while we’re talking about money, I really hate it when colleges list merit scholarships, and not only do they not tell you how many they give each year, they don’t even say how much money the scholarships are for!</p>
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<p>Do you think they do that to boost applications? I mean, say the COA is $45,000 and I have $30,000 to spend. If the maximum amount of merit aid they give is $5000, no need to even apply.Or if they give $15,000, but only to three people, no need to even apply. But if $15,000 awards are fairly common, it’s worth a shot. They deprive us of the ability to make educated application decisions.</p>
<p>I use this site [College</a> Navigator - National Center for Education Statistics](<a href=“http://nces.ed.gov/collegenavigator/]College”>College Navigator - National Center for Education Statistics) for quick facts. You can also get a pretty good idea of aid from there too.</p>
<p>[Common</a> Data Set Initiative](<a href=“http://www.commondataset.org%5DCommon”>http://www.commondataset.org) has a wealth of info too. I believe each school has to complete this very comprehensive statistical survey.</p>