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.
- 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.
- 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.
- 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.
- 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.
- 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.
- 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.
- 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.
