<p>Hey,</p>
<p>I am proudly a junior next year, thank God. However, I was thinking of taking the ACT both in fall and spring of the junior year. My only problem lies in top universities (meaning the Ivies) and how they need to receive <em>all</em> ACT scores. </p>
<p>What are the pros and cons of taking the ACT in fall 2014 and what do you actually recommend from subjective and objective (including personal experiences) points of view?</p>
<p>Take it. I took my first ACT in fall of my junior year and got a 32. It really isn’t going to hurt your score that much, even if you take it early. Colleges really are only looking at your top scores, and they’ll look at others for improvement. If you don’t score well, don’t worry about. You just need to show improvement. I only had to take the ACT two more times, and it’s super awesome knowing that I don’t have to worry about testing at all during senior year. You’ll regret not testing earlier if you don’t take it in the beginning of your junior year.</p>
<p>If you done with your math for the ACT definitely take it in September of junior year. You can prep in the summer. My daughter took it in September and February in junior year and was done with all the testing early. In general it’s not recommend that you take the test more then 3 times. </p>
<p>That is what I am thinking; I have been lucky enough to take Algebra freshman year and both Geometry and Algebra II this year. If I can keep them all fresh in my mind, I can ace the ACT, unlike the other three sections which don’t really need learning but application.</p>
<p>How was your daughter’s experience with it? What did she get?</p>
<p>Provided you have the coursework (primarily math) completed by end of sophomore year, take the test when you have time to prepare. For my D - the only time of year she really had reasonable time to prep was over the summer, so she took it in Sept of her junior year. It also left her with plenty of time to retake an ACT if she needed to. </p>
<p>Well I could’ve done the same thing. However, it pretty much sucks in Michigan, as students are all required to take the MME in March (which is ACT with Writing + WorkKeys + Michigan Mathematics, Science, and Social Studies). I would rather be prepping 8 months than for three months plus two scores for ACT instead of one.</p>
<p>Why not take it? I wish I would’ve taken mine earlier. Some people wait till senior year, get scores they aren’t satisfied with, and have no time to retake it. ACT may be harder if you haven’t gotten fully through precal yet, but SAT should be fine. In regards to colleges seeing all your scores, they’ll most likely improve over time, and an upward trend from an originally low score will not hurt you.</p>
<p>I feel that taking it twice would affect me greatly. Not only colleges would see it and compare me with others who had got better in one time, but also that I would take the ACT before taking it as required, thus chances of getting lower the second time (unless I didn’t take it seriously first time, which is a waste and nonsense after all).</p>
<p>There’s absolutely no shame in taking the ACT multiple times. No college expects a 36, or even an outstanding score on your first time. My friend who is going to Harvard next year took it three times. As long as you improve (which it’d be really hard not to), colleges won’t mind. They just don’t want to see you taking the test 8 times or anything crazy like that. Also, a note on the math section- just knowing Algebra II and Geometry isn’t enough. Trig is covered, as well. Knowing trig was the difference between a 30 and a 33 on the math section for me, so be ready for trig.</p>
<p>I had both my sons take the ACT and SAT in Fall of their Junior Year. Based on their results, they then concentrated on improving their ACT or SAT scores with Prep classes and retook the better test results in the Spring. This way they still had at least 1-2 more chances to retake again if needed. </p>
<p>How much time do you think should be put in to study for the ACT? I have a 60-day plan (15 days for each section). Problem is that I just…don’t know how to study for it. For example, English is all common sense, yet I still got 14 wrong. Math is much more based on thinking, yet I got 15 wrong. Reading is more of pacing and out-of-the box, yet I still got nine wrong, along with science. </p>
<p>Honestly, I didn’t study at all for the ACT the first two times I took it. Before the third time, I just reviewed math formulas for about 30 minutes the night before and raised my composite to a 34. Barron’s is the review book I used, and I thought it was super helpful. Of my friends who did study, the best option I’ve heard is just to take a few practice tests and really review what you got wrong. English is NOT all common sense. The questions are written specifically to trip up kids who think that by being written so that the answer choices are the most common grammar mistakes kids make. Math isn’t really based on thinking as much as it is memorization. You really need to remember the formulas to do well on math. And here’s a hint- a few of the math questions with have a hint following them in parenthesis (Hint: …). The answers are in the hint. It will give you the exact formula you need to solve the problem. Reading is easy if you don’t make it harder than it is. There really is no inference required in reading. On most question, you can find the correct answer word for word in the text, it’s just a matter of finding it in the time allowed. On science, don’t waste time reading the experiment unless a question pertains to the directions. I just use the charts and infer from there. Honestly, if you’re putting 60 days off effort into studying, you’re probably putting in more effort than I think my entire grade of ~100 people is combined. But don’t let that dissuade you from doing a lot of studying, we definitely aren’t the model to look towards. You can just show us all up and get straight 36s. I’m just saying you shouldn’t feel bad or freak out or feel like there is no possible way you’ll score well if you don’t study that much.</p>
<p>And on your user name- I don’t know if you want to go to Cambridge or if you live near Cambridge (if so, I’m so jealous), but if you’re considering applying to Cambridge, focus on SAT IIs and AP/IB tests. British universities don’t care about ACT/SAT one bit. </p>
<p>Might I suggest taking the ACT in spring and instead taking the SAT in the fall? If you’re taking the PSAT, this will work to your advantage as you can prepare for both in one shot. </p>