Should I apply early for University of South Carolina with a 19 ACT or wait to retake the ACT

My situation is very tight right now. I have a 4.021 weighted GPA and a 3.489 unweighted. The first and only time I took the ACT however, I got a 19, which is pretty low. I want to apply to University of South Carolina early to get the benefits like housing and such. Also, applying early is just beneficial overall. Should I apply now to get such benefits with the bad ACT score on the application, or wait to apply after I take my October test. I can also take it again in December. So please help me out. I am so stressed out. I also have been in beta club for a year, was selected for boys state for my junior year and I am a minority as a Hispanic. I would greatly appreciate any help. Thank you!

http://ipr.sc.edu/cds/cds2015/cdsc2015.htm Look at section C.

Unless you are recruited for football you won’t get in early. Your score is in the bottom 10% of last years admitted class. I haven’t seen any info that says EA applicants get taken at a higher percentage so I don’t know what benefit you are talking about.

Sorry, I basically meant the benefit of housing and knowing whether you got in early. I didn’t mean you have a better chance of getting in. Also, I hope to get a 25 on the next time I take the ACT.

Try to get your scores up first. Besides knowing that you were accepted during the EA process, I’m not sure if there is any other benefits. Except saving some money on submitting RD apps and sending standardized test scores to those additional schools. Every university has a different policy on housing assignments. Some schools assign housing based on date of deposit. You would need to look into each school to know if that is a benefit.

Definitely try to get your scores up. If you can take the SAT also, that would help. I tend to find students don’t improve too much when retaking ACTs or SATs unless they took it sick or couldn’t sleep the night before, but there can be a significant difference in their percentiles between the ACTs and SATs.

Ok so you are saying that I should not apply and wait for my scores to come in before applying, even though it’s not early answer?