I don’t see the purpose of his taking it twice next week, especially with the heavy load of AP work he’s got. He can probably use that half day better in prepping for AP exams. If I were you I would just cancel one of those ACT sittings. You’ll know in two weeks whether he did reasonably well on the ACT with no prep, and then he can decide whether to focus on SAT or ACT for an administration at the end of the summer, perhaps.
BTW, if he had a minute to do ANY prep before the ACT, he should do the science section from the one on the ACT website. The reason is that the science section has nothing to do with previously learned science. It’s about data interpretation, and for that, practice makes perfect. Imagine if you had never seen a bar graph, or a pie chart, and you were presented those in a standardized test. My kid got I think a 29 on the science section the first time he took a practice test, and very quickly got it up to a 36 on the science, just by virtue of becoming familiar with the way the data was presented on that section. It was the biggest, easiest jump in his score.
FYI schools like Wake and Richmond are 80K, not the 50K the OP would rather pay (and there is almost no merit aid). I know because my daughter was just accepted to both and I keep staring at my spreadsheets.
I mean to imply nothing by using the T25-50 term, other than referring to selectivity of admissions. The T25 (Ivies, Cal Tech, MIT, Berkley, Stanford, Chicago, Duke, Vandy, Northwestern, JHU, Carnegie Mellon … and others with less than 10% admissions) are out of reach for all but the most elite student, and your “average excellent student” (including my D22) needs to manage expectations, look for fit, and not focus on name brand. She does need a place that is academically challenging and will have like minded and similarly motivated students. There are many schools that fit that descriptor. I would call them T25-50 (though there are probably more than that) and we could argue all day which are included in that number. In fact, the set is fluid and based on individual opinion, but they are not ivies and sit down with regard to selectivity of admissions (perhaps hovering in the 20-30% range).
And, certainly, public universities are usually going to have honors colleges or honors programs that will that can provide more individualized attention to a student, and create a smaller “tribe” that can make a larger university seem smaller.
In a perfect world, rank would have nothing to do with targeting, other than to set expectation of what the realistic admissions candidates are.
Ideally, one seeks out schools that resonate with what they want their experience to be like and selectivity and rank would play no part in that. My son is a fairly good example. He had the stats to be competitive everywhere. His final list narrowed to one where everyone gets in, one where about 40% get in and one where a campus staffer said to him “congrats on winning the lottery.” He chose the most selective, but not for that reason at all. It was for a very mundane reason…it was the sunniest.
Where schools rank tells you very little about the student experience or outcomes.
Actually, rank is pretty strongly associated with student outcomes in terms of retention and graduation rates, because both rank and retention and graduation rates are strongly associated with admission selectivity. A college with 4.0 HS GPA students will have better retention and graduation rates than a college with 2.5 HS GPA students.
However, that does not necessarily mean that, for a specific student, a higher rank college will mean a higher chance of graduation. The specific student’s risk of dropping out for academic reasons is mostly dependent on the student’s own academic strength and background, not the rank or admission selectivity of the college. Probably the bigger factor in the specific student’s risk of dropping out is that choosing a college that is too expensive increases the risk of dropping out due to running out of money.
This is what I was specifically speaking about. A student who gets into a highly ranked, selective school has been pre-screened as a high achiever. Studies have shown over and over though, that the student in question will do well anywhere. Rankings tell you nothing about how big classes will be, who will teach them, what sort of support activities there are like clubs and research, how strong their job fair is and how their students are recruited, etc.
Since you are chasing merit, look at the OH and PA LACs… Denison, Kenyon, College of Wooster, Oberlin, Lafayette, Bucknell, Dickinson, Muhlenberg, etc.
In the south… Furman, Rhodes, Sewanee, College of Charleston, Eckerd
I wouldn’t rule out more selective colleges that have competitive scholarships, especially if he does get his SAT/ACT up in the 1500/34 range. Then it is worth considering schools like Univ of Richmond, Wake Forest, Davidson, Washington & Lee, to name a few. Just be up front with your son about budget and that without merit some schools won’t work. But you never know how it will play out until you try.
Now the schools I mentioned are all over the place when it comes to campus vibe and location. If you mentioned those preferences above, I missed it. After you research and narrow your list, I like the suggestion of contacting admissions to see if they offer housing with quiet hours, substance free or living learning communities that would tend to have a quieter environment.
Good luck!! No need to cure cancer to find the right fit.
Wake Forest is party-party, rowdy and frat heavy from what I have researched.
Look up the members of Associated Colleges of the South, especially Centre, Davidson, Furman, Hendrix, Millsaps, Rhodes, Rollins, Sewanee, Southwestern, Trinity U, Richmond and WandL. These are all very high quality places, and you seem to be from the South.
This is why it is important to dive into the campus culture. Simply looking at statistics about Greek life (as one example) can be very misleading. Greek life is markedly different when comparing a large southern university to a LAC in a rural area to a small research uni in the midwest. Since the OP is not asking about Greek life, I don’t think this is the place to have that discussion. I mention this only to point out that it is necessary to look deeper than the stats. Also I found that in some cases my opinions about school reputations formed 30 years ago when I was in college are simply not accurate today.
