Month: May 2017

This is part three of a six-part series titled “Getting Read to Apply to College” for juniors who are preparing to apply to college in a few months.  For this post I will be focusing on the SAT and ACT.  I am not going to go into details about the test’s themselves, talk about which one is best to take or any test-taking strategies.  We are in a very different world now with most colleges being “test optional” for admissions which means that you don’t have to submit a test score when applying to that school. More than half of seniors applying to college today, decide not to send colleges their test scores. At this point, I still recommend to my juniors that they should have taken one of each test and then they should take the one they did better on again in June. The reason I recommend this strategy is because I have found that most students will perform better on either the SAT or ACT.  What do I consider to be “better”?  If you scored 50 points better in comparison on the SAT than the ACT or two points on your composite score better in comparison on the ACT than the SAT.  The best comparison charts I have found are at http://www.compassprep.com/comparing-act-and-new-sat-scores/. I do not recommend that students sign up to take the writing section of the ACT. Why? Because the SAT doesn’t have a writing section anymore and colleges will not look at your score for admissions purposes.  The 2nd time you take whatever test you did better on should be when you put in the most preparation. You could pay for a course, tutor, etc. or whatever you think is necessary to score your best on the test. Some students can prepare on their own because they are more disciplined to put in the time.

So you take the SAT or ACT for the 2nd time and get your score, now what do you do? This is what I would like to focus on for the rest of this post. Below are my recommendations to rising seniors when it comes to the SAT or ACT.

1. Should I take the test a 3rd time?  Pre-covid, 80% of seniors took the SAT or ACT a third time. Post-covid, in the test-optional world we are in now, less than 30% of seniors take the test a 3rd time. Why? Because after you have taken one of each, prepare and then take the test a 2nd time, your score is pretty much what it’s going to be. Unless you think you could prepare differently or more (because maybe you didn’t prep much at all for your 2nd test), I wouldn’t recommend taking it a 3rd time. The only big reason you may want to take a 3rd test in your senior year, is because you know the college you are applying to heavily values or requires a strong score.
2. If a college is test-optional, how do I know whether to send or not send them my best score? Each college is going to provide their mid-50% ranges for the SAT and ACT for students that were admitted and enrolled at their school for the previous year. These are the numbers to go by when determining whether to submit your score(s). If you are below the mean (average) of the mid-50%, DO NOT SUBMIT YOUR SCORE(S). You can find the mid-50% score range information for colleges at collegescorecard.ed.gov, collegedata.com or the most accurate place to find updated test scores in is a colleges website or Common Data Set.
3. Should I always send my score(s) if I’m above the mean score that a college posts? If you have achieved very well in the classroom (4.5 GPA or better) and taken pretty rigorous courses (mostly honors and AP), then you may not want to send your SAT or ACT score(s) to colleges you apply to, even if you are above the mean that they post. You should be in the top 25th percentile of a colleges test score range if you have very strong grades and courses, in order to be comfortable sending your scores to a competitive admissions college.
4. How do the colleges I apply to get my scores? You need to send your best score to each college that you apply to through collegeboard.org (SAT) or actstudent.org (ACT).  Most colleges will not accept a score that is on the transcript as official.  A handful do but you would need to let me know if you are applying to a school that does.  Both testing agencies allow you to send your score(s) to up to four colleges for free if you enter these schools into the “send scores” option when registering for the test.  The college(s) will then get your score when you get them online so you do not have the option of knowing what your score was beforehand.  It does cost $11-$12 to send your score to a college after you know what your score is.  I tell my students never to send your first score on a test to a college but if you want to save money, and the school you are applying to isn’t a reach school, it isn’t a bad idea to send your 2nd score to a college beforehand because it could save you $50 in the end.  Your 2nd score should be your better score anyway.
5. Should I self-report my score on an application? My answer to this question is always no. So many times students have let colleges know of scores they didn’t want to officially send them because when completing the application they just filled in the space when it asked them to self-report their scores and they then gave the college every score they ever had. When it asks you in an application if you would like to self-report your scores, say “no” and send them the official score that you want them to see through collegeboard.org or actstudent.org. For both tests, you have the option of “score choice” so you only need to send them your best score.  There are a few of the most competitive colleges that require you to send all of your scores but this is rare.  
6. Please do not delay in getting colleges your scores. From my experience, the one thing that holds up colleges from reviewing a students application is that they haven’t received the students scores.  Either a student (or parent) forgets to send them and then they end up paying a lot of money to rush them to the colleges.  The student or parents forget that it is their responsibility to send the colleges their score(s) from collegeboard.org or actstudent.org.  I had a student once not be considered for early action because his scores got to the school too late.  He had everything else in except his scores.  Please do not let this happen to you.  Have a plan when you will send your scores in to the colleges you are applying to and stick with it.
7. Remember that a test score does not define you and move on.  Students (and parents) can get hung up on “wanting” a certain score or thinking that their future depends on an SAT or ACT score. Now that most colleges are test optional, an admissions officer will say, “if you don’t think your score is an accurate reflection of your ability and we can get a stronger sense of who you are as a student from your courses and grades, then DON’T SEND US YOUR SCORE”!  I would prefer that you focus on the aspects of the application that you can control.  Can you show any more interest that that you haven’t yet? Have you updated your resume, visit if they haven’t yet, ask to interview, e-mail or call and ask any questions to the admissions counselor who is going to read their application, etc.? These are things they can still control and can really help them get admitted.  I typically do not recommend taking the test a 4th and 5th time because data shows that scores will not go up anymore at this point and may even go down.

This is the the second part of a six-part series titled “Getting Ready To Apply to College”.  For this post I will be focusing on the college application itself.  It is really important to understand that the application is the first thing that colleges will read when you apply to their school.  This may sound obvious but I remind my students all the time that even if they have good grades, test scores and extracurriculars; if their application is not filled in correctly or contains a number of errors, this will put you in the “denied” pile pretty quick.  Nevertheless, completing the application today is a bit easier than completing the application 15 years ago because almost all colleges now have their application online.  When completing it online, it will typically tell you if something is missing or incomplete.  Below is some helpful information and advice when completing the college application:

1. Complete the Common Application if you can. The Common Application (commonapp.org) is the most popular application today.  The number of colleges that now accept it is over 1,000 so the odds are overwhelming that you will be completing it for at least one or more of the colleges you apply to.  The Common Application continues to make user friendly updates each year as well.  Now a junior can complete the information under the “Common App” tab and it will roll over into the new year when they are a senior.  They also added Google Drive integration to make it easy to attach and upload documents from a student’s Google Drive account. Starting in 2022, another new application method is through SCOIR. What used to be the Coalition Application is now the ability to apply to colleges through SCOIR. Not may seniors in the class of 2023 used this application method but I see it definitely getting more popular over the next couple of application cycles.
2. Beware of “Fast Apps”. Some colleges like to waive the application fee and/or provide an application that is quicker to complete than the original.  I am not saying you should not complete these, but make sure you are definitely considering that school as one you would attend.  Colleges do these “fast apps” to boost their application numbers so they can bring down their acceptance rate (which looks good in the rankings).  They know they will get students that fill it out and then decide not to finish the complete application process later on but they can still count the application in their numbers.
3. Fill the application out completely.  Again, the application is the first thing that colleges will read to get to know who you are.  Don’t leave things blank or vague in the application thinking that “it’s on my transcript” or “resume” and make them work harder to get to know you.  Make sure you fill in all of the space provided in an application before you say, “please see transcript” or “please see resume for complete list”.
4. If it says “optional”, it means required.  I tell my students that for any essay questions that say “optional”, you should always complete them if you are providing them more information about you or why you want to go to their school.  There are only three types of essay questions that are truly optional, the first is one that asks if there are any “circumstances that affected your grades”, the second one is if it asks about “disciplinary action you want to let them know about” and the third (for as long as they keep it in the application), is the COVID essay.  You do not have to answer these three questions if you do have any new information to provide but any other optional essay question you should answer.
5. Do not miss deadlines OR complete the application the night before. I always tell my students that it is so important that your application is submitted at least a week before the application deadline.  Why?  Because they won’t even consider if it isn’t.  I go a step further though and say that you should never complete an application the day before.  Ideally, you should complete an application the week before because in most cases you have to submit an essay with that application and you don’t want to rush to get an essay done.  If you do, it will most likely not be a good essay.  You are prone to make errors if you are completing the application and submitting it the night before.
6. What GPA do colleges review when evaluating my application? Every high school senior has a GPA on their transcript that is based on the grading scale their high school uses. At DC, we us a 5.0 weighted GPA. This GPA is what colleges will see when reviewing your transcript, but a lot of colleges today, will recalculate your GPA on a scale that they want to use so that they can evaluate all applicants on an even playing field. Typically, this is on an unweighted 4.0 scale but it could include all courses, just the “core” courses, they could honors “+” and “-” or even do something else unique when recalculating your GPA. The best thing to do is ask each college if they recalculate your GPA, if they say “yes”, ask how they recalculate it, ask what your recalculated GPA is and then check it for accuracy. Believe it or not, college admissions counselors have made errors when recalculating someone’s GPA and that could negatively impact your chances for admission or scholarship money.
7. Completing the SRAR (Self-Reported Academic Record)– Only in the last few years has the SRAR become a requirement for some colleges who now require this to be completed instead of receiving your transcript. They want you to enter your courses and grades into your SRAR account from 9th-11th grade. Click here to access the webpage to create your account and add your courses from 9th-11th grade. You will need your unofficial transcript (in your SCOIR Drive) in order to do this. You will not add your SAIL classes in the SRAR but you should add your Pass/Fail classes.

The applications for most colleges will be available to complete over the summer before a student’s senior year starts (typically August 1st).  So take the time to create your accounts in order to apply, make sure you save your log-in information somewhere you know you can find it and get familiar with the application.  It’s always good to have someone look over it before you submit it as well. Don’t withhold any information that could give more context to an admissions offer of what you can contribute to and how unique you are. They want to bring students to their campus that will bring positive contributions to their campus…not just someone that will study, sleep and do their own thing in their free time. The application is most often times your “first impression” with a college you are considering attending so make it a good one!