I’ve found that it doesn’t seem to matter at all whether students take the test once or five times, that in the end, their highest superscore is the best predictor by a long shot, even for schools that require all sittings.
@marvin100. A friend of mine is a high school college counselor /advisor. She says the same thing. Her students and clientele is the top 20 mostly. My son took his Act 3 times. His Michigan college counselor told him they like students that don’t give up to achieve their goals.
IMO, there is a difference between taking the test 4X to get, for example, a score over 1500 or more, vs. someone taking it 4X to push a 35 to a 36.
@jym626 - That’s a fine opinion to hold, but I’ve seen no such difference in practice: students I know who took the test up to 6 times and gained up to ~700 points (on the pre-2015 test) achieved admission results that were not meaningfully different from those of students who achieved similar scores on the first try.
^@marvin100 at #20 - that could well be. But that analysis doesn’t answer your original statement, which is that colleges don’t care whether you submit a superscore or a one-and-done. My (roughly tossed together) proposed analysis WOULD address that question. Collleges may WELL care, but a student’s superscore is still a decent predictor of success for a set of “right-fit” colleges. Incidentally, I’m surprised that the best predictor overall wouldn’t be GPA.
@jym626 - agreed. There’s very likely little difference between a 35 and a 36 and if anyone is rejected due to those test scores it’s likely because they appeared fixated on standardized testing at the expense of other activities and achievements that could have helped their application.
@Knowsstuff - yes, I know a number of college counselors who agree with me as well, many of whom have even larger datasets than I do.
@knowsstuff at #21 - that could well be as well. The question is whether your son - if he submitted multiple test scores to a college, would be likely to - at the worst - be considered equal to an otherwise similarly qualified candidate who achieved the same score on one try. Or would he be more likely to be deferred or waitlisted. No way does he jump ahead of someone who achieved the same more quickly. Sorry but that’s just the case. They like kids who don’t give up to achieve their goals - that’s a laudable asset. But they also like those who can achieve their goals more quickly - and they might like them better.
This isn’t a knock on your son. My kids have retaken tests in order to improve their scores. But we aren’t naive about the potential damage that multiple testing can do to an application at the margin (and my kids are always at the margin of their target schools).
Maybe there is a difference for international students than domestic ones, as my experience is similar to the other posting here. Additionally, with score choice, even if someone takes it a gazillion times, they may only report 2 scores, so the repetitive testing isnt apparent.
@JBStillFlying… Not sure. He’s in Michigan OOS for engineering. He got accepted, rejected and only one wait list (Georgia Tech) to a lot of excellent schools for engineering. This is all part of the game. I just know too many kids that got accepted to great programs that retook their tests more then once. Again the counsler I know at a well known ritzy high school just doesn’t see a major difference. She says there are more things to worry about like separating yourself with the essays. For her students, competing globally is a major issue and of course increased applications and more spots going to underrepresented students. All this adds to the competition for the fixed number of seats (relatively speaking).
@knowsstuff - valid points all. I wouldn’t expect the counselors to see much of a difference. Also, just to be clear, my original point referred more to schools that require you to send all scores, since that is the more obvious case where score history would be examined. Most - such as Michigan - don’t. Also, most applicants don’t need to submit as many as four ACT’s to achieve a superscore and most if not all schools have no problem with at least one retake. There is a range of reasonableness, obviously. Finally, as @jym626 is pointing out, some repetitive testing need not even be obvious if you manage to increase your score significantly between the first and final attempt (I’ll add the caveat that over-focusing on testing will detract from working on other parts of the application).
The issue is whether admissions committees distinguish among candidates who have tested multiple times vs. those who haven’t. They do. Regardless of how encouraging the college or admissions counselors are, the admissions committees look at these differences. It’s as simple as that. I know academics who sit on these committees and they would laugh at the thought that a 34 superscore was the same thing as a 34 one-and-done. That doesn’t mean both don’t end up getting in, but they aren’t the same and they aren’t viewed the same. That’s why one should never take another standardized test w/o having a full understanding of the costs vs. benefits. It does NOT mean that one shouldn’t take another test. Just understand that the more tests submitted, the more you can potentially compromise your application.
So - when a school is courteous enough to be honest and post something along the lines of: “We consider the highest composite score obtained in a single test administration as your ‘official’ score, although we will look at all scores reported in an effort to get a true sense of your achievement” - they mean it. That was UW-Madison, by the way, and they don’t even require all scores. But they do look at every score you submit.
Most realize this implicitly and select their schools with their testing history and abilities in mind. That’s probably one of the main reasons, other than not accounting for the impact of GPA, why college counselors don’t see testing frequency making a huge impact on selection. This is a problem known as “selection bias” (ie when you’ve already selected for the school, it turns out that stuff like repeating testing won’t make that much difference after all).
Some superscoring colleges will still see all the test sets. (And it can be the ACT subscores that matter, not just the composite.) If you see all scores/dates, and finally a kid pulls it together to get high super scores in each aspect, yes it can matter that it took 4 or more tries, if we’re talking top holistic colleges.
Imo, the point isn’t the anecdotal. It’s guaging the adcom view.
But OP has a 1270. No idea what he chose to do. But his time would have been better spent on a) looking for colleges where his then scores fit, and b) figuring out what else it takes to get an admit. No pie in the sky, aiming for a 1370 superscore, and mssing what it takes to then hit the home run.
Some kids with good private college counselors have that help. It doesn’t t mean the average unassisted kid should be pressing himself to squeeze in a December test, in senior year.
A lot of kids do test more than once. Though a one-off is nice, it’s not uncommon to see 2 or 3 sets of scores. No loss, if the superscore is ok and the rest is there.
@JBStillFlying. Many different view points. I am not talking about superscoring either. Michigan’s policy seems to be the same as your example. In our case my son got 34 act on one single test with 35 in math and science. He was working on getting up his lower English score which seems to be typical of many engineering students. But all scores were sent since if I remember correctly his last testing was before the EA deadline. It was two years ago so trying to remember.
@Knowsstuff - could well be that your son’s pattern and reasons were very typical for engineering applicants and was exactly what the reviewers would be hoping for from an otherwise stellar candidate. A 34C is harder to hit than a 34 superscore (Michigan doesn’t superscore to my knowledge but you get the point). A 35M/S just plain hard to hit period. Once the English score came up to their threshold - no problem for early admission. Of course when looking at individual candidates (not just analyzing a cross section of scores from a large data set) a lot of factors come into play, the most important being HS academic performance and course rigor. That makes sense, since the job of Admissions is to admit people, not stats.
You’ve demonstrated no such thing and I couldn’t disagree more strongly.
There seems to be one perspective from the vantage point of those working with applicants, and another from the college admissions staff looking at applications.
@jym626 - Bingo. We know those who look at applications.
I know many, many people in admissions as well, including family members, and they all substantiate my position, fwiw. (And this sort of hearsay is hardly convincing corroboration, as I’m sure you’ll agree.)
Maybe more importantly, we have the former here, but do we have the latter or just conflicting second-hand reports about what they think?
Marvin, I’m not an admissions officer nor an academic. So my reports are entirely second hand. And worth every penny I’m paid* LOL. Anyone’s free to follow or ignore.
*Can you say the same?
Just looking at the result threads (which are plenty these days!) and you will see what get a student into/not into the colleges have no obvious relationship with SAT scores! Period. Of course the caveat being CC might be a biased pool to begin with. But don’t sweat on SAT if you could spend your time to work on GPAs/Essays/ECs, ie more productively. The fourth time might not be the charm, with or without superscoring.