How do I know which schools turning in my ACT will help and at which schools it will hurt it? Someone told me that if you don’t turn in your ACT that schools will not be able to give you finical aid and my counselors are worried that even though they say it does not matter if you turn in a score or not that it actually will matter. I got a 27 and a 28 on the ACT with another score on the way. In comparison, I have a 3.95 UW GPA and a 4.125 W GPA. I have taken 5 AP tests and received two 3s one 4 and two 5s (one on a test that I did not even take the class for) and I am taking 3 more AP classes this year and 6 AP tests. For ECs I have ten years of competitive sharpshooting (attended many national competitions including junior Olympics and the Olympic trials for Tokyo 2020), for years of track, manager and VP of DECA, three years in Academic Olympics, and volunteer gun safety teacher. Is this enough to make up for my not so great ACT score? Should I submit it? Should I not submit it? I am applying EA to Ohio State, NC State, U Oregon, and U Minnesota applying RD to U Washington and George Washington University, and then rolling to Montana State University (already accepted) and the University of Nebraska Lincoln. What should I do?
I would not submit those ACT scores. Your academic achievement is high (although you can never tell from the GPA unless you know where the rest of the class stands - but it sounds as if you are top 10th percentile, maybe top 5th percentile in your class). Your academic achievement makes me surprised by how low the ACT scores are, so it will not help you, may hurt you to submit those scores.
You should compare your scores to the recent admitted student ACT scores at each school, available on their Common Data Set. (Google school name and “common data set”. It’s in Section C.)
If your applicable score (single sitting or superscore, depending on the school,policy) is above the midpoint of the 25th and 75th percentile, you should send them.
If OP can get admitted score ranges that is the way to go…and submit if above the median. Sometimes schools report admitted student profiles in a press release and/or on the website, or the student newspaper will report it.
The CDS reports enrolled student data, which can be used if one can’t find admitted student data.