got 27 on ACT, plan on going into premed in Illinois, should I retake ACT? and should I take SAT?

27 is a pretty good score! You shouldn't have trouble getting into Illinois schools with it. Though, I don't see why you shouldn't retake it to see if you get any higher.

What school are you looking into? I live in Illinois so I might know a little bit.

Don't bother with the SAT because Illinois schools don't look at it.

I am in med school and I can tell you that your ACT has no effect at all into med school acceptance. College GPA, MCAT scores, and your extracurriculars will help for med school. Only consider retaking the ACT if the school you are applying to has very high average ACT scores... your score should be good for U of I. There is no specific reason to take the SAT unless you feel like you can do extremely well; both/either test is/are respected at all colleges in Illinois.

I agree with Ryan G that 27 ACT and 3.2 GPA will make it very challenging for you to get into UIUC, Northwestern, or U of Chicago. You stand a decent chance at UIC, though, and just about any other 4 year colleges in Illinois. If you are content with the other colleges, then I wouldn't advise retaking, unless you feel under-prepared when you took the ACT the first time. If you are really going to stick to the Midwest, don't bother with the SAT. I am actually a bit more concerned with your GPA than your ACT, but you can't do alot about that at this point. Your class rank probably matter more.

I have seen quite a few students with your profile suceed in getting into medical school (most everybody who gets in gets through), and I have also seen many with higher ACT and GPA fail spectacularly. Understand that the expectations of your college professors are substantially different from most high school teachers - college professors expect their students not just to learn the facts, but to extend and apply them, and to communicate what they have learned effectively.

Best of luck.

Neither the SAT or the ACT has any bearing on you getting into medical school the MCAT is the test fro medical school. As for getting into a good school with a 27 ACT, you should be fine. Even if you don't get into Illinois you should not worry. I have three friends who could not afford to attend a 4 year university out of high school. All of us went to our local community college. Two are now doctors(one is a neurosurgeon) and the other is a pharmacist. For medical school all that really matters is your grades, MCAT scores, and extracurricular activities. It doesn't matter what school you attend. I am the CFO of a company and have many Ivy League college graduates working for me, and my first two years of college were spent at a community college.

You should probably retake because i don't know many colleges in Illinois but the big ones like U of I, Northwestern, and Chicago most likely will not accept you with that GPA and ACT score unless you have a lot extracurriculars and/or have alumni in the family and/or are a minority. Retake it and shoot for at least a 30.

it never hurts to re-take. I'm 17 also and just recently took the ACT and got a 25 in april and retook in june and got a 27. My advice is take it again and just brush up on the part you did bad on like for me my first time i got a 19 on english and the second time i got a 24 so it really never hurts to re-take. I might even re-take a thrid time.

i would retake ACT but not SAT if your school takes ACT

my experience showed that SAT is harder because

1. it has 5 choices per question instead of 4

2. it is less straight forward, trickier question formats

3. it subtracts points for incorrect responses

then again it didnt really matter for me i got a 34 ACT and 2230 SAT