I am a senior in high school and I recently got a 23 on my first and only ACT in october, which is horrendous… I thought I had cancelled the score sends the day before the test but after contacting ACT support, they told me the cancellation never went through and they were sent. I’m panicking right now because I feel like I’m not going to get admitted because of this score… My SAT score is a 1310 (700 Math, 610 reading and writing), which isn’t awful for my schools I’m applying to. I’m applying RD to Lehigh (big reach, probably won’t get in), RPI (also bit of a reach), WPI, Stevens Institute of Technology, Syracuse, Rowan University, Rutgers University New Brunswick, and Penn State. I’m applying for Electrical Engineering, and for the schools that have it, I’m applying Aerospace Engineering (which is Rutgers, Syracuse, and WPI). 23 on the ACT is a nightmare for me if I want to do one of those majors. Wondering if I should retake the test if it’s even worth it at this point, I feel like it’s too late now. With my AP Calculus ABC and AP Physics 1 classes starting to weigh me down, I probably won’t have enough time to prepare for a December test, and especially not a test during early 2019 because that’s when my Robotics season starts. My ACT scores by section:
English: 25
Math: 26
Reading: 19
Science: 21
For STEM score that’s 24 which is awful for my engineering majors that I’m applying for and will not look good for me when colleges look at it. I started to just give up when the science section came because I was so overwhelmed by the reading section, plus I thought I had cancelled the score sends so I kind of just shrugged it off.
I’m just really worried and frustrated that my scores were sent. Will this have a big impact on my chance for admissions? Should I retake even if I probably won’t get a chance to study much for it?
I honestly wouldn’t sweat it. Colleges take your best score and I believe that, try and relax. What’s done is done it’s not in your hands anymore. If you’re satisfied with a 1310 SAT then do not bother with another ACT it’ll only add unnecessary stress especially if you don’t think you’ll have time to prepare. I wish you the best of luck, hopefully Ill see you at Cuse (i wanna go so bad).
Well is there any point in doing that? I mean they have my score anyway since it was sent by ACT, will it make a difference if I put it on my application?
You actually went up 5 points from a 23 Act to a 28 Act equivalent. That’s a nice jump to show. It’s typical of engineering kids to have low English marks but that is really kinda low. Do you have good grades in English courses. Any AP courses. Same for Math and science. Are your grades in those classes? Some kids have strong grades but low Act/Sat scores. 700 in math is good. It just seems the scores you have are low for the schools you are applying to. Have safeties.
Yes I have really good grades in English classes mostly. My GPA is 3.86 weighted on a 5.0 scale. My school’s scale is really weird, you can find it here https://www.hcrhs.org/academics/academic-information/grading-scale. Basically I have no idea where I fall under that list but right now all I know is that according to my counselor it’s a 5.0 scale and my GPA is 3.86 weighted.
I have ended freshman-junior years with at least an A- in English CP classes (senior year is first year I’m doing honors level English and right now its a B). Don’t know why I do awful on the reading and writing sections of standardized tests, might just show I’m bad at test taking or something.
Every year I always have a class that I fall in the B range but those are Honors or AP but I have never ended the year below a B in any of my classes. My counselor has told me that there is a big discrepancy from my GPA and my standardized test scores, but she also said my essay is really good and the fact that I jumped from Algebra 1 CP from freshman year to AP Calc senior year is a huge advantage in my application, there are not many people in my school that have done it. So this test score is possibly the only thing that could destroy my chances.
My school does use Naviance and I quite often fall below many of the “lowest ACT” scores listed on the schools that I’m applying to
Schools usually use the highest score, but typically on the same test. I think OP has a good reason to be worried, at least for the reaches. The match and likely schools should still be in play, though.
All I’m hoping is that I get accepted to Stevens Institute of Technology. Unfortunately didn’t apply ED to any schools because I didn’t want to make binding decisions, so I did RD, but Stevens is my top school at this point. Hopefully they’ll disregard the ACT score though
I have talked to my counselor about adjusting/adding backups to my list of schools I’m applying to.
Something like this happened to one of my kids. There is a section of the Common App. for “special circumstances” or something like that. We wrote that my kid was sick the day of the test, and that specific test did not represent kid’s ability. We referenced the second test taken when he was better. You can’t unring the bell once the scores are sent to the specific colleges. You can just cast them in the best light possible.