This article is continued from How You Should Prepare for the SAT and ACT.
Why did Mary take the SAT and ACT multiple times?
The SAT should be taken at least twice, though studies show that students usually peak around their third SAT. The reason all students who take the SAT should take it at least twice is to take advantage of “superscoring.”
What is superscoring?
Superscoring allows students to combine scores from two or more tests. So, Mary started with a 520 on the English portion of the PSAT and a 530 on the Math portion of the PSAT. On the March SAT, Mary scored a 570 on the English and a 620 on the Math for a total of 1190. On the June SAT, she scored a 650 on the English and a 610 on the Math. While this adds up to 1260, Mary’s SAT score is now a 1270 because she is able to take the best scores and combine them.
What about the ACT?
Mary prepared for the ACT and took it in April of her junior year. Mary scored a composite 23. This is approximately equal to scoring an 1130 to 1150 on the SAT. Fast forward to the summer before her senior year, and though Mary isn’t in love with the idea of preparing for the September ACT, she realizes that one of her reach schools requires an ACT composite score of 26, which is approximately equal to her SAT score of 1270. She decides to prepare for it because she knows she needs to do it. She ends up with a composite ACT score of 28, setting herself up for acceptance into her reach school.
Go ahead and start planning
Planning for college a year or two out isn’t always the first thing we do, but creating your own Personal Testing Strategy can really help to reduce stress and maximize the chances of acceptance to the schools students want to attend.
If you need help with it, please call Laurence (516) 376-8241 or Patrick (516) 302-5608.