<p>JHS, looked up Oberlin, Vassar and Wesleyan. At 1350+SAT scores at Oberlin 50% were accepted, 25% waitlisted, at Vassar 64% accepted, 14% wl, at Wesleyan 53% accepted and 18% wl. For grades 97 seemed to be a good line for Oberlin and Vassar 80% accepted at the former 75% at the latter (with 1 wl as well). But at Wesleyan there was only a 50% acceptance rate for a 97. If I looked for a 100% acceptance rate - line was 1400+/94+ at Oberlin, 1350+/98+ at Vassar, and 1500+ at Wesleyan (no obvious grade cut off).</p>
<p>Well, I just wanted to update since my son took the ACT and received his scores back.</p>
<p>He was very pleased with the score. Put him in the high range of the middle 50% of most of the colleges he was looking at. </p>
<p>And the score is much better than the PSAT would predict. I think there are two reasons for this:</p>
<ol>
<li><p>As many have said, the ACT tests different strengths than the SAT, so it was more of his test. I can't describe why I would say this, just a feeling when I looked at some of his practice tests.</p></li>
<li><p>He practiced by getting the Real ACT book and going through the sections, getting a score and then seeing what he did wrong. It was interesting to see the progression of his practice scores. Initially, they were more like the PSAT would predict (good, but on the low range of the schools he was interested in), but by the end he was getting perfect practice scores in some areas, which I think really increased his confidence. Although the perfect scores didn't show up on the real test itself, he scored well enough on all sections to get the composite score he felt good about.</p></li>
</ol>
<p>Although I know that many parent readers on CC already know this (the collective wisdom here is simply astounding!), for those neophytes like me I would like to say that I am very suspicious of test prep centers for students who are bright, doing very well in high school and hard working. I think with the PSAT he worried too much about finding short cuts, invoking strategies etc. which ultimately hurt him. With the ACT, the practice involved getting used to the test through repetition and tweaking some of his weak areas. He is a bright kid so simply reading, straightforwardly doing the math problems, figuring out the charts in the science etc.--skills he really does excel in at school--sufficed. And, as I said above, the ACT is more his test.</p>
<p>Thanks again to those CC parents out there who responsed.</p>
<p>D's PSAT scores went down from soph to junior years. We were pretty disappointed, because if they had only gone up a little bit, she would have been a NMF in a competitive state. But, she recently took her SAT's and the composite was 170 points higher than the junior year PSAT conversion would have predicted! There's hope!</p>