My son (current 11th grader) has prepped for the SAT/ACT for 15 minutes a day over the summer (mainly working on weaknesses) and took practice versions of the SAT 1480 (EBWR 700/MATH 780) and ACT twice getting a 33C (35E, 34M, 35R, 27S) and (34E, 33M, 29R, 35S). He will take one last practice ACT this weekend and will then review anything that he needs to work on. Based on his current list of schools (Morehouse (current strong #1), Georgia Tech, Howard, Rice, Tulane, Florida A&M, North Carolina A&T, Duke, and UGA), is there a test score on the 9/8 ACT that ends this life long hamster wheel of test taking?
Google Common Data Set and look at section C7 for scores of accepted students. Most people I’ve read on this site say if you hit the 75%ile you’re done. Duke may be the one that has your S continuing to study.
Also sometimes you can think about it the other way around…this is my son’s ACT score, what colleges fit that?
Why don’t you wait and see what he gets on a real test…and then decide if he needs to retake based on the types of colleges to which he plans to apply.
He also can read through the list of no-test and test optional institutions at http://www.fairtest.org/ to find places he likes that don’t care about test scores.
If he’s URM (as the Morehouse first choice suggests), he’s in great shape for all his colleges. At Morehouse his current scores put him in the top 3% of the class. http://www.morehouse.edu/ire/commondataset.html
He doesn’t need to apply to test optional schools if his real scores are similar to his practice scores.
@thumper1 I am pretty confident that he will hit between a 32-35 range on the real deal and he is hoping to be done, but I don’t know what score will do that. He asked me and I told him I don’t know. I told him to look at the student admitted profiles for the schools he was interested in. He is so far away, I haven’t thought as much about what he needs yet.
@happymomof1 He knows that the way to merit aid at some schools partially depends on standardized testing results.
@bopper That is a good idea.
For us it was a 30 ACT. That was our target. Take it and see.
There were definitely in state kids with 33s and 34s who did not get into GA tech this year, so if he gets a 32 on the first try and wants an acceptance to Tech, I would probably take it another time. However, if Morehouse is truly his number one, you could stop there.
@mathmom The top 3% for Morehouse would probably not good enough for the ultimate goal. Morehouse has 5 Stamps full ride scholarships that they give to the top 5 incoming freshmen . During my own Morehouse matriculation in the mid-90’s, the top students of the class at Morehouse were brilliant and my son knows that the costs would have to make sense (No more than the costs of in-state public schools in Georgia).
@elena13 I saw that same trend with GA Tech this year although they have treated my son’s high school pretty well. I would probably ask him to take one more time with a 32. I think the number I am on the fence about is a 33. Since he has a few top 50 schools on his list and is open to try for a couple of big reaches, was just wondering what number would make retesting a waste of time.
It’s tough because with the top 50 schools and the competitive scholarships, it feels like it’s never enough. I would think a 33 would be enough if other areas are strong. However, if he were to get a 33 now, he may still want to give it another shot at the end of the school year, especially if he’s very interested in Duke and Rice.
@elena13 You could be right. Hopefully he will put up a big score so he will be able to relax (I keep forgetting about October PSAT).
I had not thought about scholarship/merit money. That’s another ballgame. For admissions I go with what I said.
Anyway, good luck to your son! My kids each took SAT twice. They got similar scores each time, but ultimately with superscoring taking it more than once was worth it. They never tried the ACT because they were happy with the SAT results.
The average ACT score for Rice’s matriculating class this year was a 33. Your son should be in fine shape, and Rice would be lucky to have him. If he is an African American male with great grades and scores, he will be sought after by every school in the country
Science and reading are his outliers, which I think of as different takes on reading comprehension. He might want to look over those sections to try and figure out the difference between the 29 and 35 in Reading and the 27 and 35 in Science. He might be able to pinpoint simple techniques that could make a difference for him. In any case, when my girl was where he’s at, she was planning to take the ACT unprepped to get a baseline and go from there. She got a 34 composite and decided there wasn’t much to gain by taking it again and stopped. I bet she would have with 33, too.
A 34 would end the hamster wheel for sure.
For some of the most competitive scholarships, 35 or 36 versus 34 may matter, although it is hard to know.
Some automatic for stats scholarships may also be better with 36 versus 34.
@Houston1021 His current UW GPA is good not great (3.78) but the light bulb turned on halfway through 2nd semester 10th grade year and he has just been crushing his classes since (No grade lower than a 98, one month into this school year). Best case UW GPA by start of application season next fall is a 3.85
@EllieMom The Reading outlier is one that I am not to worried about as he spent a lot of time on a particular passage (he said the passage was interesting?) and did not finish the section (he only missed 1 question up to the point he got to) and believes that won’t happen again. The Science section has been where he has been focusing the most time because that 35 was lucky in his mind (every single question he wasn’t 100% sure on was correct on that particular test).
@theloniusmonk A kind CC veteran sent me a PM with ACT data (2013) that featured only African Americans and the data made things clear for my son, but was sobering for African Americans. That data showed that 259 African Americans in the class of 2013 made a 33C or higher and that 99 African Americans made a 34C or higher out of 240,000+ test takers. After looking at the data with my son, he decided he will take a second time in the spring if he doesn’t get a 34C or higher. Like you said, that is a definite end to the hamster wheel.
@ucbalumnus I do think it is possible for my son to get to a 35C or 36C with enough work, but not sure that he would want to go through that. The ACT data for African Americans from 2013 (4 students with a 36C and 27 students with a 35C) would mean that my son would definitely stand out at that level.
We were talking about the very subject last night when I asked my D19 if she would be a “one and done” when she takes it in a couple of weeks. She is not an URM, but for her that number would be a 34. Same situation, different child and S19 was convinced (by me…) to take it again and he could not move from a 34 to a 35. Most every subsection practice he took fell in the 34 to 36 range if that matters. Good luck!!
Scholarships like big test scores.
We decided that we were done when my kid got 33 superscored after his second attempt. There were plenty of other places for him to spend his mental energy and time. I suspect that I could have pushed harder and he could have gotten to 34-35 with a solid prep program, but that would have been at the expense of his mental health and his grades on the summer courses he took. So not worth it.