Well, lots of schools are likely to still be TO at application time, especially in light of Harvard’s move this week. So maybe you submit your 1450 (congrats to your son, @AmyIzzy!) to the match/safety schools and go TO to the reaches? If you don’t get a higher score by app time.
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Finally the SAT score posted and yay, she went up and hit her goal!!! She’s very balanced. Same exact score on both sections both times she took it.
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He came home from the SAT pretty confident but seemed less so with the ACT. He managed the time ok but just didn’t care for the format for some reason. I read somewhere that 85% of students earn similar scores on the ACT & SAT (which we hope that means 30 or above) but some students really excel on one vs. another. Best of luck to your daughter! I think it’s just a matter of applying to a variety of schools, being realistic with the reach schools (especially in terms of $) and seeing where the chips fall in those final months before decision time.
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Yeah, we are early in the game so not too worried about it at this point. But nice to know most schools will continue the test optional format and he can always decide not to send scores to those reach schools.
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My s23 has time before the ACT and his school starts prepping them hard in the new year. He did a pre ACT and scored 26-33 with 0 prep.
As you said, we are very realistic with his academic stats which are low (lucky if he hits a 3.5 in the end) and will choose schools accordingly.
The biggest issue for us like most others is cost. And because of that we will cast the net far and wide.
Figuring out his college choices are more complicated because he may choose music education major and some require auditions. Add in a chance at reduced tuition at Jesuit or Tuition Exchange schools but yet he would prefer a school with spirit and football that’s not too rural with a decent music scene that’s by mountains or water. Seems to be the impossible unicorn.
My oldest s19 had LD and we knew a tech school path was best for him. He had visited a town 3 hrs away once and it had a tech school with dorm and he was set and away he went.
So s23 is our first real college app kid.
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You sound like you have an excellent plan. As the mom of a music major, the audition thing certainly puts a twist in all of this. A new kind of stress for sure. Can I ask what tuition exchange is? I thought it was when state schools offer state tuition to OOS students but someone referred to it with a private school recently (I think her mom worked at another college in Florida but she received full tuition at a private school in PA.) Just want to be sure I understand it. Thanks.
As I work for a Jesuit college, it’s an employee benefit. Children can get free or reduced tuition at the schools in the list.
However, the tuition rewards was never guaranteed and with the pandemic its even more competitive.
And my son has a low GPA and average ECs.
But being divorced and my ex making too much money to get need and yet unsure how much if any money dad will contribute, means my son will need to make sacrifices of his wants to get into a school I can afford.
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SAT score came in for S23. He didn’t seem too content on test day, but came back with a great score. SAT testing is over in this household!
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This might sound like a dumb question (I’ve never been afraid of asking those 
) but does anyone know how/if Naviance deals with all this new test optional/blind admissions data? Seems like those scattergrams might not be all that useful for much longer.
D23 is excited to join the one and done club after taking the Dec SAT. She’ll still have to take the ACT at her school in March but having a good SAT takes a lot of the pressure off at this point. We haven’t done any college visits yet so coming up with a short list for spring break is next on the to-do list!
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My kiddo’s last year ACT in my mind should be one and done. However she thinks she can get the one or two more points AND more importantly, she made the mistake of doing the optional essay part last year, which they no longer even have. She did horribly on it, and it shows on the report for her score. She doesn’t want schools to see the essay score, so feels she has to take it again.
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For a lot of schools, the ACT is self reported. On the common app, you put in your best score on each section and best composite, and date taken. I wonder if you would HAVE to include the writing score? For a lot of colleges, you only send the official score after accepting your spot. By then the poor writing score wouldn’t matter. I guess it would depend on the wording whether you have to answer whether you ever took that section.
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Both of my older kids did horribly (I mean, seriously horribly!) on both the ACT and SAT essays, and it didn’t stand in their way of getting in anywhere they applied.
One reason the essay was dropped is that most places not only didn’t use it in application decisions anymore, they didn’t even look at it when provided. (Even though the SAT initially added it in response to pressure from the UC system—but it became obvious nearly immediately what a flawed measure it was.)
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Dec. 11 ACT scores are out - kiddo got 35 and 36 on English/reading but in the mid/high 20s on math and science. Not really a surprise - both my kids (and both parents) are completely lopsided.
He’s got some work to do but I’m really happy with half of it, hahaha.
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Sounds like my kid! Tests extremely high on words, less so on numbers. (The weird thing is that I feel like she completely blows away classwork with numbers, has to work crazy hard on words. Go figure.) But with a 32 composite, she decided it was one and done, no need to stress any further.
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Yay! Happy with half of it is great for targeting studying for next time for the superscore. 
My D is lopsided also. Much higher on E/R than on the STEM parts (predictably). She prepped this fall and took the SAT as well, but the ACT worked out better for her, and she is relieved to be done with this part of the process. Now back to working on AP Research and some summer program applications over “break.” Meanwhile S21 is home from college and fully enjoying his actual break.
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D23 got a 1510 on the December SAT. She’s done, probably. She thinks she could score higher, and I agree, but at this point I don’t think it’s worth it for her to retake. She can’t do the March exam, and May will be difficult with four AP exams. I’m fine with her doing the June exam if she wants, so long as any prep she chooses to do doesn’t interfere with her grades or AP exam preparation.
I think I’ve written earlier that I’m a believer in one and done, based on a realistic assessment of a student’s testing abilities. Older child was one and done at 1400 taken in the May of junior year, which was a very strong score for him based on his practice exam results, as well as his high school coursework and grades. D23’s score range for the December exam (1470-1550) mirrored almost exactly the scores she got on the five practice exams she took in preparation. Of course, she was hoping for 1550, hence her slight disappointment.
I think it’s helpful to look at the sections separately. She scored 760 in math, with three wrong answers, all in the calculator section. She’s always had an unfortunate tendency for careless errors, though with time and maturity she’s improved a lot. One of her errors on the exam was in the easiest category. I think she’d need a bit of luck, and maybe a personality transplant, to do better in math. And, since she’s in calculus this year, she’d have to brush up all over again on her algebra and geometry. Not worth it.
In English, she had seven errors, six in reading comprehension, for a score of 750. I’m a believer that just doing school will improve a student’s score, and with her taking APUSH and AP Lang and Comp this year, I think she could easily push her reading comprehension score higher if she were to retake in May or June. But, again, very likely not worth it.
For all the talk about the waning influence of standardized testing, it is still sobering to look at admitted students’ stats. For example, D23 liked Northeastern after a tour and information session earlier this fall. Her 1510 puts her in the middle 50% of admitted students, which is great, but not shock and awe great. Having said that, I do wonder about the effect of test optional on these stats. Three of the schools we recently visited – Northeastern, BU, and Wesleyan – said straight up that students should not submit their SAT score if it was in the bottom 25% of recently admitted students.
Well, that was longer than I expected. Happy holidays to everyone. 
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I went through sturm und drang with my D19 over testing - she finally cobbled together a 30, I think, with the same yawning gap between verbal and math/science, but it took three tests to get there. (First test was a 27.)
S23 is better than his scores would indicate in math & science, though. I begged him to crack open an ACT Science book I bought him - just a slim volume that shows you the style of questioning/process you should use in how to answer - because it’s not the kind of structure and timing that everyone can go into cold. Just like there’s a certain way to deal with the reading comprehension section of the SAT, and once you crack that code, you’ll do much better.
But did he listen? Noooooo. He also makes careless errors, and I’m sure that’s a factor. I couldn’t get the TIR this time, though, because it was a rescheduled test.
I guess we’ll try again in early summer - like you, @FourAtShore, I don’t want to distract from grades and the APs in spring.
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You have to figure out if the school stats include all admitted students’ test results regardless of whether they were submitted at the time of the application. At Wesleyan, they are. I can’t speak for Northeastern and BU.
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And I’ve seen a growing awareness here and elsewhere that the stats are just completely useless for us in 2023 - if the only people submitting scores are doing so because they’re above the middle 50, then they’ve blown the curve for the rest of us, and it’s a score-arms race and it won’t end until the only scores being submitted are 1600s and 36s. Sigh.
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