Weird ACT score: how screwed am I?

Test Preparation ACT Preparation
1

<p>So, I took the ACT on October 22nd, and I just took a good look at my scores.</p>

<p>I got a 31 composite, which is not quite what I was hoping for, but fine nonetheless. However, I realized that my essay score was really, really low. Despite having scored a 33 on the English section, and a 34 on the Reading, I apparently scored a 6 on the essay.
I also scored much lower on the Math than I was expecting, but that's another story....</p>

<p>Anyway. How closely do colleges like Rice, Duke or UT's Liberal Arts Honors program examine writing subscores? It is too late to re-take, unfortunately, and I don't have the time or preparation to take two subject tests and submit one of my SAT scores instead. </p>

<p>However, I am going to take a Literature Subject Test in hopes that I can kind of strengthen my application w/r/t verbal and writing scores. I've taken a couple of the Literature practice tests from Kaplan, and I've scored a 760 on both.</p>

<p>I realize that a 31 is already on the low side for schools like Rice, but I'm going to apply anyways, for the hell of it. </p>

<p>TL;DR What else can I do to overshadow a low writing score? And how much will it hurt me?</p>

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<p>Not all schools look at the writing (a good handful don’t). You can look on the collegeboard’s site. A 6 won’t help you, but the composite is a lot more important.</p>

3

<p>You can always re-take it. I think up till December of your senior year!!</p>

4

<p>Many schools actually use your ACT essay as a baseline for comparison with your application essays to make sure they are your own work. So, you may want to retake it if you think your writing style was significantly different from how you usually write. Personally, I think comparing an application which you had months to write and rewrite to something you have to quickly scribble in a test situation is a little weird. But they do it anyway! </p>

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5

<p>I can’t re-take. The latest test date for the ACT that Rice or Duke will accept is December 3rd. Unfortunately, the next available test date is December 10th. Feel free to correct me on this if I’m wrong.</p>

<p>LastOne2012: Wow. Well, I may have a few syntactic quirks that carried through, but the essays are vastly different. Gulp.</p>