So I’m a junior who took the ACT in April, and I scored a 30/36 with a perfect 12/12 on writing. I did quite well on Math (34) and English (33) and obviously writing, as previously mentioned. The only downside is that my Reading score (23) and my science score (28) bought my score down significantly I plan on re-taking the ACT in June to get those 2 bad scores up to 30+.
So my question is, if I were to submit this April ACT score report to colleges that superscore, will they still be able to see the 23 and 28 from English and Science? I know its not heavily considered, but I don’t want to leave an impression that I scored that poorly on those two sections in the first place, even if I improve them in June. I know superscoring takes the best scores from each, but do a lot of prestigious institutions and their adcoms see those bad scores in my first score report (even if theyre replaced with better scores)? Could someone help me out? Do colleges value getting a high score in one sitting, or is it the same impression as a volatile superscore?
Good question. And congrats on some strong scores. Yes, for the ACT the student submits by test date. So if you want to use your Math, English, and Writing scores from April, schools will see Reading and Science as well.
Most schools that super-score say that they will only consider your highest score on each subsection. I’ve heard it asserted that they will even complete their own chart with the highest scores, so that those doing the reading don’t necessarily see the lower scores. I get, though, the feeling that admission reps are humans and might see numbers that are lower than you want them to see, and it might negatively influence their decision, even if the policy is that it should not. The only sure way to get around it is to get Reading and Science up while keeping the others strong, then you would not have to submit the April results. Prepare well and see what happens. Maybe you won’t have to send the April results.
If you do end up considering to send multiple test date results to different schools, you might read carefully what the admissions site says about how they consider the tests. If you attend an info session, you could listen carefully to what they say about it, or you can ask. (They tend to say send all the test results.) You can decide which schools receive each test date results, so it is conceivable that you would come to different conclusions about which scores to send to different schools, even different super-score schools. Good luck!
I plan on re-taking the ACT in June to get those 2 bad scores up to 30+.