I didn’t mean easier to score well on. I think that is somewhat equalized. I meant that if you had unlimited time, the ACT is easier. But they intentionally put you under a more of a time crunch than SAT does. There is more to it but that can be an indicator of which kids may prefer one test over the other.
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Midwestern here. I dont care who is smarter. The ACT has given my son plenty of merit. No complaints.
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I believe it is an Illinois State requirement for graduation to take the SAT. My son’s school is April 12.
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My DD preferred the ACT and got a perfect score, while her SAT was only 95th percentile. The only prep was before the ACT she did one practice test the night before and got 36 on each section. She took the PSAT twice, and was NMSQT Commended. Took Pre ACT once and each actual test twice.
My DS25 has taken the PSAT and PreACT and gotten the same percentiles for both. Hasn’t decided on a preference, will take the PSAT again in Spring as the entire sophomore class takes it. I wonder if it will be the new digital version? He wants to go to the Naval Academy and they actually encourage taking it as many times as you can and they superscore. He says he’ll do practice tests this summer but I don’t really see that happening. He wants to sign up for a summer SAT so I should start looking into when they are held.
Though the test companies make sure to have lots of room between 95th percentile and a perfect score, that difference is small enough in real terms that it could be the test, or it could be the tenor of the dreams the test-taker had the night before each exam.
True. If I remember correctly, she hadn’t slept well and the room was freezing. And it was the year we were doing cyber at home and she was masked, didn’t wear her glasses because they fogged up. So many little variables.
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Yes I just looked that up. I’m thinking that since DD goes to a private school that rule doesn’t count for her. Will ask the guidance counselor today because if it is a requirement then they have to offer it for free to her which I don’t think is an option currently. Thank you.
I read it that some people sat while others act?
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Anybody else here try the New York Times Build Your Own College Rankings tool? (Paywalled if you’ve hit your free article limit, I got into it through the gifted link largesse of a friend.)
C25 has some very definite geographic preferences (well, weather preferences actually, but those basically force it down to the Northeast, Mid-Atlantic, and Coastal Northwest) and a bit less so some other things the list lets you filter by, but that means that regardless of the rankings it gives, there are 70 colleges after filtering.
Which is kind of useful for us—unlike their older siblings, C25 is interested in a couple majors that are very widely offered, so we can’t cut the possibilities down to size by applying a filter on majors at the outset (after the parent-required endowment filter). The specifics of the rankings are kind of whatever to me, but the filtering is gold.
(It’s not a complete list, though—there were a few colleges I noticed were completely missing. But it did point out the utility of some that weren’t on our radar, and it was kind weird how no matter how we jiggled the sliders Stony Brook was consistently in the top 3 and usually the top 1 for what the kid feels is important.)
I did just for fun and the top two were the same two schools my D had on the top of her list when she applied.
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I’ve reached my limit but it should reset soon. I’ll definitely see what The NY Times has to say. I’ve got like 6 open tabs with different college websites like college board, money, college navigator, NACAC, etc. I’m happy to add another! At this point my D has a pretty set distance from home she’s willing to travel and being in the “B” student category it’s easy to eliminate so many selective schools and I know our budget will also be a factor. Thanks!
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Here’s the gifted link - and discussion on the tool:
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Question about financial aid. Our older son (2022) is in his first year of college. We’re full pay. When our 2025 son is in his first year, our older son will be in his senior year. I felt like we were on the border of full pay and getting a little bit of aid with S22. Is it likely that we’ll get some financial aid for S25 when they’re both enrolled in college? Also would S22’s current school consider giving some aid for his last year if we’re full pay for the first 3 years?
Have you run the net price calculator for your current college student’s school with 2 kids in college? I’m not really knowledgeable about this subject and there’s far better posters on here but I’d start with NPC. Any school you consider for your second student I’d run the NPC for both scenarios of 2 students in college and 1 student in college.
One more final visit for S23 to solidify what he thinks will be the final school choice. I put in a lot of work to cultivate a diverse list for him but it really worked out in the end. Fingers crossed I can do the same for D25!
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I’ve been watching your posts on the various forums and am super impressed with your results and the research you put into it. I have a budding music major as well. I have no doubt your ‘25 grad will a similar outcome!
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Is the college your child a CSS school? If it’s just FAFSA, the rules are changing before your younger son arrives so that the schools will no longer divide your EFC by two because you have two kids in at the same time. CSS schools haven’t stated what they are planning to do, as far as I’ve read. I’d reach out to your son’s college and ask what they will do so you have accurate information.
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The NYT tool is interesting but it is definitely missing schools. I filtered by size, state, and >50% STEM graduates and my DS19’s school didn’t show up. He goes to Rose-Hulman- a 100% STEM school! Knowing that his school is missing has me wondering what other schools are missing. And I feel bad for anyone using the tool and missing out on discovering this gem of a school. He has had an excellent education!
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I like the NYT tool in principle, but I admit I want more sliders. At this point D25 has ruled out no locations and at this point really just wants to make sure she’s with people that “care” about their education, which I think can be found at “all” schools. If you only toggle the academic slider (which isn’t really about caring–it’s about numbers, but I don’t have a better option) then what appears are the name-brand schools we’ve all heard about, with a few exceptions thrown in. Maybe I should just be happy for the few exceptions and add those to her list?
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Or at least more granularity. Like, there’s no way to filter for low-GPA/high-test or the reverse, and IIRC there isn’t even an option to filter for test-optional or test-blind!
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