Why the low ACT range (28-32 or 29-33) for Ivies?

Applying to College
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<p>My S had a composite 30 in ACT with a 36 in Math but had a C+ in one of the Math honors course in his high school. Did not get into Cornell or Georgia tech for engineering even though GT only considers Math and English sections of the ACT where he had a solid 33, my point is that the SAT and ACT can only take you so far, it is the HS GPA which carries more weight.</p>

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<p>There’s no technical barrier to superscoring the ACT right now; when an applicant sends in an ACT score report, it includes all the subscores. Easy enough for colleges to dump all that information into a database, do a few calculations, and come up with a superscore. The reason they don’t superscore the ACT is financial. With the SAT, you pay one fee for a single score report that includes every SAT Reasoning Test and every SAT Subject Test you’ve ever taken—or, using Score Choice, any combination of such scores you choose. Either way, though, it’s all rolled into a single score report fee. In contrast, ACT charges for score reports on a sitting-by-sitting basis; so if you take the ACT three times in your junior year and want to report all three scores to get your best superscore, you’d pay three score report fees, not one. Superscoring the ACT would put lower-income kids at a big competitive disadvantage. Not only would superscoring create an incentive to take the test more times (already a problem with SAT superscoring insofar as it favors the more affluent), but applicants would also need to pay for multiple ACT score reports. Some couldn’t afford it; those who could afford it would have a big leg up.</p>

<p>That’s also why the handful of colleges that now ask to see ALL your SAT scores (notwithstanding Score Choice) don’t also ask to see all your ACT scores. With the SAT you can cover all those scores with one score report fee. With the ACT you’d need to pay a separate score report fee for each time you took the test.</p>

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<p>If the point is that scores are necessary but not sufficient I agree. Also as to the importance of the high school curriculum.</p>