On the ACT, if you have two 34s and two 35s your score would be a 35. How would Miami score that, as a 35 or as a 34.5?
My son currently has a 34, but his superscore is three 35s and a 34. He intends to keep taking the test until he gets a true 35 and has hopes that he might get a 36 superscore, or through some miracle, maybe even a true 36. He’s got to get the full-tuition scholarship if he’s going to come, and he and I both figure his chance is better the higher his ACT is.
But anyway, just wanted to know whether they use fractions or round up if anyone knows. Thanks.
I’m not sure if the superscoring of (3) 35s & (1) 34 are your son’s subscores you’re referring to or if you mean he’s taken the ACT 4 times. I’m going to assume you mean the former.
35, 35, 35, 34 as subscores would tally a superscore of 35. We were told a 35 is a 35, regardless if it were from one sitting or superscored & that they do not discriminate based on how the # is attained.
That being said, you might want to seriously consider counseling your son to take his score & just be happy with it.
- There are VERY few schools and scholarship opportunities that don’t clump 34, 35, 36 together as a single group.
- studies have been done showing that beyond any reasonable doubt that taking these tests more than 3 times is generally useless in raising a student’s score. In fact, there are also data showing that there is a point of diminishing returns. After a certain point, scores will actually begin to decline.
- even if your son were to get a 35 in a single sitting or a 36, it is not a guarantee that he’d be offered full tuition at Miami. Read through some of this year’s scholarship posts & you’ll see that there are students with 35’s that weren’t offered full tuition.
He has a great score! My vote is to take it & run!
Also, if getting at least full tuition is of key importance for financial feasibility, I highly recommend taking advantage of the other scholarship opportunities Miami offers. Have him apply for the Scholars program ($2000) & perhaps even the Bridges Program ($2000-full tuition) if he’s a junior.
Bridges is a diversity program & they want people that will help promote diversity on campus. I feel too many students pass over this opportunity because they assume it’s for minorities only. It isn’t! It’s for ANYONE that they feel will add diversity.
The best example I can provide of what would be considered the epitome of a ‘privileged’ white male promoting diversity would be former President JFK. People forget that this privileged white male also made a HUGE impact in supporting diversity through his proposal of the Civil Rights Act of 1964. "After his address, Martin Luther King, Jr. called President Kennedy’s “civil rights proposals, ‘the most sweeping and forthright ever presented by an American president’.” https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Civil_Rights_Address And of course, LBJ signed it into law as well as the Equal Opportunity Act. Another white male. Who could possibly argue that these acts didn’t significantly impact diversity in the workforce & schools in the US?
So if your son feels he can help promote diversity, be it as an individual or as a catalyst for something, I say go for it too! Obviously, he would need to actually help the diversity situation though!
@jumbletumbles I was indeed referring to subscores when I mentioned the three 35s and one 34. There is a local honor which requires a true 35 on the ACT, so he is going to keep taking the test in an effort to earn that. Also, someone has posted merit aid results, and there seems to be a pretty big difference in results between 34 and 35. I just can’t believe a 36 would hurt.
My son will almost certainly apply for the Scholars program. I really don’t think he’s what they are looking for in the Bridges Program.
Wow. Doesn’t your son have anything better to do? Like achieving something (which getting a higher score isn’t doing). I can think of some schools that, if they knew this mentality, would reject your son on the basis of this mentality alone. Like read MIT’s blogs! Did you know that repetitive test taking is associated with elevations of neurosis? It’s true. More importantly it reflects a focus on trivial activities at the expense of spending time on valuable pursuits. Even learning to juggle or twiddle his toes would be a step in the right direction (unless he is already a pro in which case he might want to write something significant and submit it to a journal).
If your son has taken the test 4 times but wants to take it some more times, I’d wonder about OCD. Does he check the lock on the house many times before he is sure the house is secure? Some schools request all scores. They will definitely not be thrilled to see that a student took the test more than 4 times!
@lostaccount I was referencing four subscores, not four test attempts. However, my nephew took the ACT eight times. The first time he had a 24, the second a 26. On the eighth try he got a 34, which earned him STAR Student (a state honor), admission to a selective university, and some financial aid.
Although my son has only taken the ACT twice in high school, he has indeed taken the test four times in his lifetime; two of those were prior to entering high school, once in seventh grade (talent search) and at the end of eighth grade. The eighth grade test was to comply with state law which required him to make a 30 in order to dual enroll in college courses, so it’s not like he had much choice.
The STAR Student award I mentioned goes to the highest ACT score in each high school save that every student with a 35 or 36 automatically gets the award. There’s usually no money with it, but it’s a nice award, and the kids get to name their most influential teacher as STAR Teacher. At my son’s school there are generally four to eight STARs; my guess is that next year there will be 10 or 12, as their class size is bigger and there are a lot of really smart students. No bright student wants to feel like the dumb one is a situation like this.
Taking the test is not particularly time consuming. It takes four hours. Given that my son has scored a 35 in three of four subsections, it’s just a matter of luck to get them aligned so that he gets a true 35. And maybe, just maybe, he’ll get two 36s and thus a 36 superscore or even a true 36. You can say all you want that it doesn’t matter, but if you look at the annual merit scholarship amounts that are awarded by Miami, a higher ACT score makes a huge difference, although it certainly doesn’t guarantee anything.
Years ago I took the LSAT and made a perfect score on the morning portion. But then I went to lunch and the grill at the student union took 40 minutes to cook my hamburger and I came back in having wolfed down my burger, out of breath from running, sweaty and frazzled, and I missed six questions on the afternoon part, which I attributed to my physical and mental state. This still resulted in an extraoridinarily high score, but I considered taking it again just to see if I could make a perfect score, in a Mt. Everest sort of fashion. I kind of regret that I lacked the confidence to do so. I doubt anybody regrets having a 36 on the ACT.