<p>Not sure what the best thing to do it. My daughter took the ACT awhile back without any prep and hadn't had enough math to do very well. She got a 21. </p>
<p>After studying and getting more math under her belt, she got a 28. That is enough to get our full state sponsored scholarship and enough to get into the state universities that she wants to go to. She isn't going to apply to any reach schools. There are a few in-state privates that she may apply to but they don't emphasis test scores. Her HS GPA is a 4.0 and she will graduate HS with her AA and a very high GPA (3.97 at the moment, honors). </p>
<p>Most of her practice scores were 30 & 31. </p>
<p>She could retake it and likely do a little better than the 28 but I'm not sure what the point would be. Will a few points make any difference in the grand scheme of things in terms of other scholarship money? Is there any other reason to retake it? Thanks!</p>
<p>Has she looked into any outside scholarships to see what the requirements would be for those? Does she need more in scholarship money? 30 seems to be a big number for the big private scholarships, but 28 seems to be the number for most institutional (college sponsored) scholarships.</p>
<p>Depends on whether there are any more scholarships to get at higher scores. For example, see the following list which shows a range of minimum scores for large scholarships:</p>
<p><a href=“http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/financial-aid-scholarships/1348012-automatic-full-tuition-full-ride-scholarships.html[/url]”>http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/financial-aid-scholarships/1348012-automatic-full-tuition-full-ride-scholarships.html</a></p>
<p>If those privates give merit scholarships, they may be more likely to offer bigger scholarships with higher test scores.</p>
<p>I agree with it all depending upon scholarships if you are certain she’ll get into the colleges she wants. Many scholarships I’ve seen from schools my boys have looked at want a 30 - 32 minimum, but of course, it varies by school.</p>
<p>And if you don’t need/want scholarships, there’s no need to bother.</p>
<p>It won’t hurt to do the ACT again, especially since you can choose not to submit them if the last set of scores are lower or are the same. In addition, certain schools superscore, so technically, D couild achieve a 30 even if she doesn’t actually get a 30 on the next ACT.
S got a 26 and a 29 on two separate ACT’s. For the schools that superscored, he actually got a 30. His scholarship offers were increased by quite a bit in certain cases, and his GPA was nowhere near your D’s.</p>
<p>What does SHE want to do. After a couple testings of the ACT most kids will level out and the gains will not be like between test 1 and test 2. If she’s game to try it again there is no harm as you can choose which set of scores to send. Mine burned out on testing after a few times and simply didn’t want to go again. My third has taken it 2x, once the state mandated sitting and once on his own. He wants to try it in September for a third time but my oldest refused to go again after 2x.</p>
<p>I agree with momofthreeboys that it depends most on what she wants to do. The leap from 21 to 28 was a big one; good for her! If she doesn’t need the boost for scholarships, I don’t see a point. But if she wants to try to get a few more points, I don’t see the harm in another sitting.</p>
<p>What’s the cost of the ACT these days - around $50??? If an extra point or two might mean even an upgrade of an additional $1000 a year at a college isn’t it worth it? And if it’s a renewable scholarship that one point could buy you a minimum $4000 over four years or much more depending on what the college offers. </p>
<p>With my D who graduated in 2007, 30 seemed to be the magic number for the highest awards. For S in 2010, 31 seemed to be starting to be more common (random, I know, but that’s what we found at some the schools he applied).</p>
<p>You have to draw the line somewhere in terms of the # of times you take it, but her first score seems totally off base of the second score so I’d be real curious what test #3 might bring. No pressure, but no harm.</p>
<p>My D’s mantra was always “Don’t let me fall in love with a school you can’t afford.” So we only toured schools that we could either pay for in full, or for which she would qualify for significant merit money.</p>
<p>There were two schools on the list where I told her in advance “If this is one of your favorites, you will need to take the ACT again to try to bump up a level in merit.” She fell in love with one of them, took the ACT one more time, got the one point increase she needed, and loves the school.</p>
<p>Edited to add: I think my younger D will likely be in the 21 range. If she is able to bump it up to a 28, I will be thrilled beyond measure!</p>
<p>Thanks so much everyone! I actually haven’t talked to her about retaking it but I will today. She was SOOOOO relieved to see that score yesterday that I didn’t think it would be a good time to bring up retaking it. I wanted to let her ride that high! </p>
<p>After reading the responses, I don’t think it would be a bad idea. I do agree that from what I have seen, 30 seems to be the magic number. I think she can do it and there wouldn’t be any pressure on her. She already hit the magic number she needed and if she does better, great. If not, no biggie. I’ll ask her where she stands when she gets home from work today.</p>
<p>I would say re-take. It can’t hurt, and like many have said could qualify her for more scholarships. </p>
<p>My personal story is that I took the ACT 3 times. Got a 27, then a 28, then took it on a whim on standby, and got a 31, which qualified me for a much bigger bump in scholarship money at various state schools I applied to, though not at the school I ended up choosing.</p>
<p>I would have her re-take. The sitting fee and time required may pay off well in addt’l scholarship money.</p>
<p>I know the common mantra is students will level out after 2-3 sittings, but S1 rec’d 26,
30, 30, and 33. He was dead tired after a 4 day convention and I almost let him talk me out of sitting for the last exam…he got home at 2 a.m., we drove him the 1.25 hrs to the testing site by 8 a.m…30 was good enough, etc. Was pretty happy I hadn’t caved when those scores came in!</p>
<p>If she just got the new score yesterday, might you want to wait just a bit before bringing this up? I’d find it a little demoralizing to have achieved a tremendous increase and right away hear the suggestion that it might not be good enough.</p>
<p>Yes, IMHO I would wait. She won’t re take until the fall and you don’t want to undermine her success by giving the idea of “not good enough”. Also see if she is willing to do it. After my older kids had taken it a few times- they were done with the idea of taking it again-just burnt out on testing and wanted to give it a rest. She may feel differently after a break, but for now, she probably doesn’t even want to think about it.</p>
<p>Yes, she may have to work on it a little, but after the end of school and the test, it may do her good to just get away from it.</p>
<p>It would be positive reinforcement for her improvement to say this is great and let her enjoy the accomplishment.</p>
<p>Assuming she had close to 112 combined it would require a 6 point increase (or a bump of 2 points in 3 subjects) to get to a score of 30. I probably wouldn’t take it again. My D was in a similar situation. She scored a 26 composite the first time but we were concerned with her Math score (19). She had decent scores in the other three (English 27, Reading 28, Science 29). She decided to retake and bumped her Math score to 26 and improved her Reading score to 30. Unfortunately her Science score dropped by 2 (27). The end result, a whopping 1 point composite increase to 27. :o At least we accomplished the goal of getting the Math score up. ;)</p>