ACT SCORE

From the AFA website. "Students who score below 620 Evidence-based reading and writing or below 580 math on the SAT reasoning test and below 24 English/reading and 25 math/science on the ACT normally will not be competitive for an appointment directly into the Academy. However, they will be considered for the prep school or a Falcon Foundation Scholarship."

So as long as you don't have very lopsided scores where one of your sections is below 24/25 then that score meets the minimum for consideration. However, many candidates will likely have higher scores, so if you can improve on it, you should.
 
The answer is, as always, it depends. It depends on what your competition for a nomination has for scores. It depends on your status within other demographics. There is no hard answer. In my opinion, a 30 is not high enough for many instances. To be truly comfortable, I would say 33+ with no sections below 29 or 30. Take it as often as possible.

Stealth_81
 
Definitely keep taking it. Until you’ve leveled out and can’t improve much more, or until you have a 36 😁. DS took it 4 times and stopped with a 34 at my suggestion. Looking back I should have encouraged him to keep going, because why not?
 
IggyMom23 said:
Definitely keep taking it. Until you’ve leveled out and can’t improve much more, or until you have a 36 😁. DS took it 4 times and stopped with a 34 at my suggestion. Looking back I should have encouraged him to keep going, because why not?
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I think you have to consider the return on investment studying for the ACT can give you. Unless you live in a very competitive State/District, once you get 33 or higher, you're pretty much guaranteed to have one of the best ACT scores in your nomination slates, so the time you spend studying for that could be better spent pursuing excellence elsewhere so you can get your WCS up.
 
I am on my local congressman SA nomination committee and my job is to rank the candidates in order and determine who should get an interview. I can tell you this year there were a lot of 29, 30, 31 ACT scores... .but that one candidate had a 35. How do you think the 30 looks now? It only takes one person to have that high score and you could be in trouble.
 
Is it possible to receive appointment? Absolutely. Is it going to make you more competitive than others? Probably not.

DS had a 30 and received a direct appointment out of high school. We probably don't live in one of the most competitive areas, but there were at least 11 interviewing for a congressional nomination. I honestly believe the only reason he got the appointment was the rest of his application was solid and he absolutely killed the nomination interview, most likely landing the principal nomination. Without saying it in so many words, his ALO said his nomination interview was phenomenal and is what put him above everyone else.

He was never even contacted for an interview with our 2 Senators, probably because others had higher ACT.
 
As you know, the SAs look at your qualifications across your academics, athletics and activities. Your '30' may be sufficient, but I recommend that you continue to expand your résumé (as I tell all my students) along with taking the ACT (and/or SAT) as often as you can. Have you started preparing for the CFA? Are you seeking leadership opportunities? How are your grades and are you doing your best school work? These are just some of the areas to focus and improve. Best of luck with your preparations!
 
This is just my opinion, and I'm not an expert. But I think in this age of Super-scoring, that yesterday's 30 is now a 32. So I would keep re-taking and shoot for a 32. You can do it!
 
If nothing else, retaking the ACT is a valuable exercise in test-taking, which has huge value here.
 
billyb said:
I am on my local congressman SA nomination committee and my job is to rank the candidates in order and determine who should get an interview. I can tell you this year there were a lot of 29, 30, 31 ACT scores... .but that one candidate had a 35. How do you think the 30 looks now? It only takes one person to have that high score and you could be in trouble.
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It depends....Maybe one of those 29 kids is an excellent leader, faced adversity at a small, poor rural school or inner city school and excelled in all other areas including athletics whereas the 35 kid attended a private school and is just smart. Based on total picture, I'd take the 29 kid all day, but surely a congressional board member would see that as well.
 
tkinion said:
It depends....Maybe one of those 29 kids is an excellent leader, faced adversity at a small, poor rural school or inner city school and excelled in all other areas including athletics whereas the 35 kid attended a private school and is just smart. Based on total picture, I'd take the 29 kid all day, but surely a congressional board member would see that as well.
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Sometimes the 29 kid won't even get a chance to make that case. In my son's experience this year, he had two interviews (rep, and one senator) received nominations from both. The other senator ranked based solely on standardized test scores to decide who to interview (my kid's is good/not great). So he didn't get an interview for the "big 3 SAs" from that senator.

My kid is the kind of kid who interviews extremely well. He is very relaxed/natural in public speaking/interview type situations but not having a stellar standardized test score ended up hurting him in that situation. Not the end of the world of course for my son, but when boards have to narrow down applicants and choose a black and white metric like standardized test scores, every point counts.
 
At the end of the day, it’s all about your confidence in your score. If you feel confident that you will win your slate with a 30 then a 30 is fine. But if there is even a shred of doubt that you may not win the slate, take the act again. Taking the act again will not hurt your chances or the score you already have. I was applying to West Point with a 1460 sat when my RC called me and said he didn’t think it was good enough. I could have stopped and rolled the dice but I took the sat again and eeked out a 1510. By mid-December I had received notice that I had been appointed. You have to want an appointment and you can show how much you want it by improving your scores as much as possible before the cutoff date.
 
billyb said:
I am on my local congressman SA nomination committee and my job is to rank the candidates in order and determine who should get an interview. I can tell you this year there were a lot of 29, 30, 31 ACT scores... .but that one candidate had a 35. How do you think the 30 looks now? It only takes one person to have that high score and you could be in trouble.
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I'd take a 29 or 28 or even a 27 as long as they aren't posting threads about "oops I forgot something...how does amnesty work on I-Day"? How many of those posts are coming from folks with stellar grades and test scores?
 
I got in with a 30 ACT. Took the test around 3 times, I think. Keep taking it over and over again. If a 30 is the best, you can get so be it. You tried your best. Work on building up other parts of your application.

P.S. The ACT prep books that they sell on amazon really helped me.
 
My DS is a 29 super score but places in the 93% range on the gain service academy admission candidate score estimator due to high athletic, EC, etc, scores. What do you all think?
 
A-Train said:
My DS is a 29 super score but places in the 93% range on the gain service academy admission candidate score estimator due to high athletic, EC, etc, scores. What do you all think?
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Keep taking it. The estimators are essentially meaningless. Everyone has great everything, test scores are well within the candidates control.
 
I should add: he’s 3Q’d with a medical waiver that got approved in 5 days, and nothing to report on “amnesty day” :)
 
A-Train said:
My DS is a 29 super score but places in the 93% range on the gain service academy admission candidate score estimator due to high athletic, EC, etc, scores. What do you all think?
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What is the gain score estimator and where can it be found?
 
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