I am taking the SAT on August 24. I feel pretty confident as I have taken 2 PSATs and a past SAT and have been studying over the summer. Now I am just worried about the ACT. I really want to get all of these pre-tests out of the way so I really want to take the ACT on September 14 (and I will have to sign up by tomorrow- I wasn’t sure if I wanted to take the ACT but now I am sure). However, that leaves me only about 2 weeks to practice. I took a practice test (but I didn’t do a full sitting one) about 2 weeks and got around a 27 (using a chart by subcategories were 30,27,28, and 24). I really feel like I could improve with practice as I haven’t done any. If I sign up later I am worried about burnout and the fact that my dual credit classes will start (they don’t start until August 24). I am also worried about early admissions for schools. For example, I am considering Tulane University and they require early admission for scholarships (which I need) and I am worried my ACT scores for October wouldn’t be out yet. I also really want to wait for both my ACT and SAT scores to come out before I start applying to any schools (or shorten my possible schools list as what merit scholarships I will be able to get will be a big part in determining if I can go/want to go to a school). Thanks y’all in advance!
I honestly think it wouldn’t hurt taking, (I took the SAT four times last year and am going to take the ACT this September) but the critical thing is whether you’re going to burn out or not. Personally, after taking my first two SAT’s, I was mentally done and had little motivation for studying for my other SAT’s, especially since I had to do school at the same time.
But if you think that you still have some motivation to prepare even while taking dual, then go for it! Since you don’t have much time, I recommend doing as much practice as you possibly can: do ~1-2 practice tests each week, get an ACT workbook and do problems in it, etc. I guess the hard part is adjusting to ACT since it’s so different from the SAT. And make sure the practice tests you take are official ACT tests and that you take them in one sitting (to gauge how much endurance you have).