<p>I'm sure almost everyone on here is familiar with the concept of "superscoring" the ACT (and SAT, I guess), but just in case, here's a brief explanation. There are four (five if you count writing) ACT subject tests: English, Math, Reading, and Science. The conventional way of determining a test taker's composite score is adding all of the subscores up and taking the mean. Example: 27 English + 29 Math + 26 Reading + 27 Science = 109 Total/4 Subscores = 27.25 Mean = 27 Composite.</p>
<p>However, many students opt to take the test more than once. Oftentimes, they score higher in one subject during a certain test than they previously did. "Superscoring" occurs when schools take ALL SUBJECT TEST SCORES from ALL TESTS TAKEN and combine them to form the HIGHEST POSSIBLE composite score. Using the example above, let's say the same student takes the ACT again. This time, they score a 29 on English, a 28 on Math, a 28 on Reading, and a 26 on Science. If we were to "superscore" this student's ACT, we would take the 29 English from the second test, the 29 Math from the first test, the 28 Reading from the second test, and the 27 Science from the first test, reaching a "superscore" of 28.25, or 28.</p>
<p>My question is this: do admissions officers hold single-sitting scores to higher standards? For example, if both students had ACT scores of 28, but one was superscored and one was a composite from a single test, would they take that into account? Or not?</p>