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Seeking advice on standardized testing and colleges...are my scores good enough?

I got the following scores for my SATs:

Overall: 2180

Writing:760

Reading:730

Math:690

ACT:

Overall: 32

English: 36

Math: 25

Reading: 34

Science: 31

Also, I took the SAT subject tests and got:

History: 720

English: 730

Spanish: 690

(I plan on taking Spanish and English again to try and make them better in the fall. I'm not taking history again because I took it in 9th grade and now have forgotten everything...haha.)

So are my ACT or SAT scores better? And, since I have heard that some colleges accept ACTs instead of subject tests, which is better; my ACT scores or my subject test scores? Should I retake the ACTs? I would like to get into colleges such as American University, George Washington, Colgate, Weslyan, or possibly Berkely (although I realize this would probably be a reach.) Are these scores on par with those colleges? I have a 4.1 (weighted!) GPA and I do several extracurricular activities, although not too many. I do community service but I do not have a job (not for a lack of trying.) Which of these colleges could I reasonably expect to get into? What should I do to better my chances?

My guidance counselor keeps telling me to speak about it with my parents, and my parents keep telling me to talk about it with my guidance counselor. I would really appreciate some help!!

Thank you very very much for any advice!!! :-)

2 Answers

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  • 9 years ago
    Favorite Answer

    A 32 on the ACT is equal to a 2130 on the SAT, so your actual SAT score is only marginally better. If I were you, they're close enough that I would at least consider sending in both to demonstrate your consistency across multiple tests.

    As for how score reporting works, most schools have one of the following options:

    (a) SAT + 2 SAT II subject tests OR

    (b) ACT

    Obviously schools that don't require subject tests won't have that in the option (a). There are some schools that allow you to use only subject tests as your form of standardized testing (ex. NYU) where your three tests have to be from certain fields, but that's rare for the most part. If I were you, I wouldn't retake the ACT unless you feel that you have at least a 90% chance of doing better; on the off chance that any school that you apply to requires that you send all of your test scores, not just the highest one (this is uncommon, but not rare), it's detrimental if you decline on your scores, and it's more likely by probability that you would remain at a 32 or go backwards rather than score 33-36.

    As for the colleges that you're listing, I'll provide you with the middle 50% of their SAT scores. The middle 50% is essentially giving you a broad average range; it's good to be within it, but being above or below doesn't guarantee or disqualify you from admissions.

    American: SAT: 1750-2080, ACT: 26-31

    GW: SAT: 1810-2080, ACT: 27-30

    Colgate: SAT: 1890-2180, ACT: 29-32

    Wesleyan: SAT: 1960-2230, ACT: 29-33

    UC Berkeley: 1870-2230, ACT: 28-33

    For UCB in particular, the stats are sometimes deceiving because of how as a public school, the institution is under more pressure to accept minority students who statistically, score lower on the SAT and the ACT, so if you're not a minority, you should consider their range closer to 2000-2230. It does help as well for the UC system in general if you're an out-of-state student; they like you more because you pay double in tuition.

    It would be a little easier to chance you if you gave us your unweighted GPA, but I'll infer around a 3.5.-3.7 range, so for you, a lot of these schools are kind of reaches just because of how your standardized test scores don't match up with what your SAT/ACT scores would suggest. American isn't going to be hard; not easy, but not hard. GW is a slight reach, while the other three are moderate to high reaches. While your SAT/ACT scores match up, you can bet that most other applicants will be closer to the range of 3.8+ unweighted GPA and 4.3+ weighted GPA, so that's a slight detriment that you can't really correct if you're going to be a senior this coming fall. Even if you're going to be a junior, the best recommendation that I can give to you is to just keep doing what you're doing. Maintain the same commitments that you've made, keep taking rigorous classes, don't drop activities, and don't add any new ones unless you were previously restricted from them by age, grade level, or something else that only recently opened up to you. The information about your EC's is obviously vague, so it's hard to say for sure, but if you participate in activities such as sports, music, are part of NHS, Key Club, and do academic activities outside of school (debate, mock trial, model UN, olympiads, decathlons), understand that those are pretty commonplace activities to find on even mildly competitive applicants' resumes, so you have to figure out what's going to really distinguish you from the pack of people that have very similar resumes to your own.

  • 9 years ago

    You're an Asian aren't you? ;)

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