<p>I got a 35 and by no means did I think about retaking. It's a waste of money, time, and brain cells. A 35=36 for most colleges and when you get a score around a 34, you'll most likely go down than up.</p>
<p>momof3boyz, sorry if you took that the wrong way, but i meant it as a joke. sorry if it hurt your feelings. its just that a 35 is a great score. i would just tell your son "relax! youre done with test taking!" i also took the test 3 times, but i only took it seriously the last time becuase it was my last chance to take it. i studied for over 10 weeks for that test, and with the first 2, i crammed in a week. do the colleges see the first 2 scores? no way. like everyone else has said, it is possible that he can go down. when you are so fixed on perfection, you may get caught up in worrying about getting every question right that you make silly mistakes. a 35=around a 2300+ on the SATs. if he was in this situation with the SATs, i doubt you would have him retake a 2390 just for 1 more correct answer.</p>
<p>laurstar07, no harm done. Our school's transcripts include ALL test scores (PSAT, ACT and SAT) including the dates they were taken. </p>
<p>I appreciate all your input. I will leave the decision to re-test up to my son. If he does re-test, he will have to test in June. The Oct test date is the same morning as the State Cross Country Race. The only thing that would stop him from qualifying & racing would be a serious injury. We have no control over that.</p>
<p>Don't retake it. I know how many people see a 36 as some "magic number" that will get them anywhere. I got a 36 composite and still got deferred from my first choice... :(</p>
<p>I thought I would be infinitely happy if I got a 36. But when I did, it wasn't as cool as I thought it would be.</p>
<p>Personally, I wouldn't retake it, because a 35 is still extremely good to colleges (probably not much different from a 36) and the chances of improving from that aren't great. At least two of the sections would have to be 36's, and that's assuming the other sections are 35's...</p>
<p>Wow! I certainly wouldn't retest, 35 is a great score. But I can understand why he would want to. It is soo irritating when you just miss getting that perfect score by a point or two. If it's really important to him, and he knows he can do better next time around then I say he should go for it.</p>
<p>No score is a guarantee of anything when it comes to elite college admissions. My older son got a 36 ACT in a single sitting, had a great HS record and got rejected by 1, waitlisted by 2 and admitted by 3 Ivy/elite schools. His younger brother is a senior this year, got a 35 ACT in one sitting, has a great HS record, is a state-qualifier/team captain/multi-letter athlete and got deferred ED at the Ivy school he wants to attend.</p>
<p>The one thing that a 36 ACT makes you that a 35 probably doesn't is a US Dept of Education Presidential Scholar candidate.</p>
<p>Good luck to your son -- he'll still need it.</p>
<p>Dont do it. I got a 35 and i'm happy. :) Difference between 35 adn 36 is really negligible.</p>
<p>I agree with what most of the people here have said. I would advise against trying to take the ACT once again.</p>
<p>The first time that I took the ACT I scored a 35. I decided to take it again, because I had not opted to take the optional writing section the first time around, and I realized the second time around that with scores in the 34-36 range, it is such a crapshoot. It comes down to the smallest of things: how much sleep you got the night before, what you ate for breakfast that morning, the difficulty of individual questions... all of these insignificant factors make those little differences. </p>
<p>The second time I took the ACT I basically felt as though I had done exactly the same and scored a composite 34, but dipped in several individual categories. So there you go. All in all, not worth the retake.</p>