My daughter is a junior in high school. She still has chances to take the standard tests. My question is: Is it better to take it again or not?
Background information: She was instructed by her 7th grade gifted-program teacher to take the ACT test for the first time, and she scored good enough to qualify for our local flagship. Then early this month, she took the test for the second time. The result came out and she scored 34 (no prep., we are in a typical university town without fancy prep. organizations. She was just naturally test out from her current knowledge)
She expressed that she will take the test one more time aiming for 36 because our flagship universities give full-ride without other conditions to those high school seniors who apply with perfect test scores.
She is currently top of her junior class of 500+. She took many AP and some state flagship classes, has strong EC’s, and will apply for some very top/reach schools + our flagships. I read many suggestions on CC about not to take standard tests too many times. Although her chance to Stanford is extremely low, she may still have a chance and we don’t want her to blow it to her dream school if taking too many times of the standard test hurts the chance. Will one more test, if scored lower (or even higher), hurt her chance to Stanford? Is it better to take the test one more time or not?
A 34 ACT is fine. If your daughter wants to retake to hit a 36 for full rides at your flagships, that’s fine, definitely do that. With an initial score of 34, taking the ACT twice won’t look bad at all to Stanford. Generally, universities (although they say they don’t) are somewhat cautious of an applicant who took the SAT 6 times, going from an 1800 to a 2350 or something. In your daughter’s case, they know she’s qualified, and taking it twice won’t affect her application at all (and I’d suggest doing so if she thinks she can get a 36, although 36s are rarer than 2400s on the SAT).
@Findmoreinfo. If she indeed took the ACT test as a 7th grader for the gifted programs…and many kids around the country do…it will NOT need to be reported to Stanford. They make special exemption for those middle school gifted exams. So, if your daughter wants to improve her 34 score one more time…she can.
Here is the official wording from Stanford admissions: http://admission.stanford.edu/application/freshman/testing.html
@Findmoreinfo - you have already received great replies regarding taking the ACT again. I am just tossing out one other thought since you are asking about standardized tests: has she taken any SAT Subject Tests yet? Although they are recommended and not required by Stanford, you might want her to look into those for this spring, particularly if she is taking some courses (such as AP Chem or AP Lit) that might correspond well to some of the Subject Tests.