<p>I could have asked this in the ACT forum, but want to get the parent perspective, I will do more research on the test and any nuts and bolts questions over there.</p>
<p>Heard a presentation by our new college counselor yesterday. Some of the Q&A related to taking the ACT instead of/in addition to SAT. We are in SAT country. He talked about the ACT being a valuable alternative and it seems they will encourage more kids to take it.</p>
<p>For other reasons, I will be meeting with him in the near future. I want to ask him if there are any plans to offer PLAN the pre-ACT test. I read about it briefly and saw it is given to sophomores. Our school gives PSAT to Sophomores and Juniors but is very low key and stresses it is practice and doesn't give the Sophomores their number grades only the analysis sheets.</p>
<p>What are other parents' impressions of the PLAN? Is it a useful test? Since it is a "no-stakes" test (ie, no NMSQT equivalent) I assume kids don't prep for it and is a very raw indication of their ability? Is it good to help call out students where the ACT might be the better test for them? Is taking it as a sophomore late enough to correlate well with ACT? </p>
<p>For other schools with a low key, not on the college-prep treadmill philosophy, would having both PLAN and PSAT given to sophomores focus too much too soon on college prep?</p>
<p>If there are similar threads in the ACT forum, I can go look for those also.</p>
<p>jackie, my son took the Plan as a sophomore. We are also in SAT country, so the introducing the ACT in our school is very new. We got an estimate of where our son might score on the ACT. The range was wide (6 point range in our case anyway). My son performed better on the Plan than the PSAT as a 10th grader, but the PSAT is really a junior test, and the Plan is a sophomore year test. I don't see any "stakes" in the ACT, anyway, since you pick the scores from your best seating to send in. This will soon be true for the SAT as well.</p>
<p>We do live in ACT country, so giving PLAN to 10th graders here is standard. That is the only time the students at our HS take it. I don't have strong feelings pro or con about it, especially because they are taking so many other standardized tests anyway, and there's no carrot similar to NM for the PSAT. It gives an idea of the format of the test's sections but that's available on practice tests. There is a range of predicted composite scores as northeastmom points out, but D's too was broad (4-point range in her case) and she scored 1 point above the top of her predicted range when she took the ACT the first time (of 2 tries.) One thing I mentioned on another thread was that although D's ACT composite only went up by one point the second time she took it, her subscores were all over the map on the 2 attempts (e.g., reading up 6 points, science down 4). Most U's we visited said they wouldn't superscore the ACT's, but given her success in admission to Honors Programs and merit offers, several midtier U's acted as if they had done so anyway. (Although S had taken both SAT and ACT, D doesn't like standardized tests so never took the SAT.)</p>
<p>I take it back, it was a 4 point range for my son as well. I was just too quick to answer. It still seemed like a wide range.</p>
<p>Here is a list of schools that other posters have said superscore the ACT. I have no idea if this list is at all accurate:</p>
<p>Brown University
Columbia University
Connecticut College
Florida State University
Georgetown University
Kenyon College
NYU
MIT
Olin College
Purdue University
St. John's University
SUNY Buffalo
Trinity College (CT)
University of Arkansas
University of Georgia
University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill
University of Tennessee
WUSTL</p>
<p>thanks for the comments so far. Do schools where both SAT and ACT are popular give both the PLAN and PSAT? Do they do both PLAN and PSAT in sophomore year (as well as PSAT in junior year)</p>
<p>So far I don't hear really compelling reasons towards PLAN, the predicted range seems pretty wide and there is a good period between it and ACT I wonder how much they will retain on format. But looking forward to hearing other experiences.</p>
<p>Our hs offered both for 10th graders, and the psat for 11th graders last year. This year, the 11th graders that took whatever combo of tests as 10th graders, may take the psat (somebody might qualify for NMS).</p>
<p>PLAN is standard and PSAT optional for 10th graders but they encourage PSAT for anyone with a 3.0 UW or higher; most if not all 11th graders take PSAT. According to D, in the last few years the school has let some 9th graders (presumably those with "involved" parents who have NM aspirations for their kids) take the PSAT as well but it's not widely publicized as an option.</p>
<p>We're in SAT country and our HS doesn't offer the PLAN. S went to a neighbor private school (they were quite accommodating) and took the PLAN in 10th grade. He did much better than PSAT, took the ACT end of 10th grade, scored a 34 and called it a day. Can't tell you how nice it was to have the biggie out of the way early. Never did even take SAT (although had to take SAT IIs for UCs). Soooo.... my point is to pursue the ACT. Some kids just do better w/ the different format. If you can't find a PLAN to take, take the ACT and don't put in the HS code (as some schools list test scores on transcripts and you just want to gauge where you need to improve).</p>
<p>S will take the ACT tomorrow for his 2nd time-got a 30 1st time without a calculator-he had a TI-89 which they will not accept-so he did the math without a calculator (only mention this so others so not make the same mistake) hope his 30 is higher after his 2nd test WITH the right calculator. However-he has taken the SAT 2 times and his 2nd SAT=his 1st/no calculator ACT test. I do think that some students will score higher on the ACT and colleges seem to accepting both across the board.</p>