Taking the SAT/ACT Multiple Times...

grking

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I had a conversation with my high school guidance counselor a few days back, in which she recommended that I not take the SAT or the ACT more than 3 times (I plan to take the SAT on Jan 25 for the first time in high school, although I took it once in 8th grade through a talent search program and have taken the PSATs twice through school). Although USMA (and possibly USNA) is certainly my first choice, I also plan to apply to several civilian colleges. While I got the feeling through reading through this forum that the Service Academies don't care how many times you take the SAT, I was told by my guidance counselor that civilian colleges do care. Does anyone else have an opinion or factual information on this?
 
I had a conversation with my high school guidance counselor a few days back, in which she recommended that I not take the SAT or the ACT more than 3 times (I plan to take the SAT on Jan 25 for the first time in high school, although I took it once in 8th grade through a talent search program and have taken the PSATs twice through school). Although USMA (and possibly USNA) is certainly my first choice, I also plan to apply to several civilian colleges. While I got the feeling through reading through this forum that the Service Academies don't care how many times you take the SAT, I was told by my guidance counselor that civilian colleges do care. Does anyone else have an opinion or factual information on this?

The only way a school will know how many times you took the SAT/ACT is if you submit the scores. My DD took the ACT 10 times, was accepted to 2 top 10 business schools. She was QNS last year, reapplied this year and has an LOE. If you are concerned about the perception of multiple test attempts with your plan B civilian colleges, i would suggest you contact the respective admissions offices and confirm if multiple test attempts is a negative. I suspect you will find your guidance counselor is misinformed. Good luck.
 
ACT/SAT testing...

The SA do super score your standardized test results or in other words will accept your highest scores. As stated before, colleges other than SA may have admission parameters you will need to investigate.

My experience with my kids, after taking the ACT/SAT 3 or 4 times they tend to plateau. This is very common with other students. At this point, my DS, used outside services that specialized increasing scores and had great results. They taught how to take these tests rather than practicing question after question. There is a technique in taken these test and you may find better results on one test compared to the other.

Plan on taking every test available and between tests study to improve. For the SA I would set goals for ACT-30s and SAT-700s. If you don’t get accepted into a SA, you will qualify for 96 % of all colleges.

Good Luck

Push Hard, Press Forward
 
The only way a school will know how many times you took the SAT/ACT is if you submit the scores.

This was going to be my initial response to you also, but then I remembered that my son's official transcript shows every ACT test score he's taken in high school (6 total). I agree with the above poster. If you're concerned, contact the college admissions and ask.
 
There are a number of civilian colleges that super score now too. Certainly check with the schools you are applying to. If they allow super scoring they will be understanding of multiple attempts.

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Also, depending on what grade you are in and what scores you get....you may do so well this time that you don't need to take it again and again! Wouldn't that be great?
 
This was going to be my initial response to you also, but then I remembered that my son's official transcript shows every ACT test score he's taken in high school (6 total). I agree with the above poster. If you're concerned, contact the college admissions and ask.

Actually, if you don't want you test scores on the bottom of transcripts, all you have to do is ask your school counselor (or whomever is in charge of it at your school) and they will take whichever scores you want off. Our counselor informed us of that because most of the kids at my school took the ACT so many times that they couldn't fit every score on the page and make it look good. I took the first 3 ACT scores off of mine because they were so low (21, 25, and 26). Makes it look good when you get 28-30's on your transcripts, and like the people above me posted - most schools encourage you to retake ACT. :thumb:
 
Actually, if you don't want you test scores on the bottom of transcripts, all you have to do is ask your school counselor (or whomever is in charge of it at your school) and they will take whichever scores you want off. Our counselor informed us of that because most of the kids at my school took the ACT so many times that they couldn't fit every score on the page and make it look good. I took the first 3 ACT scores off of mine because they were so low (21, 25, and 26). Makes it look good when you get 28-30's on your transcripts, and like the people above me posted - most schools encourage you to retake ACT. :thumb:

Going into this we had no idea the school even had my son's scores let alone would send them in. It was our understanding that we had to order the test scores sent from the testing agency.

We had actually asked for a copy of my sons transcripts to see what was in it and it didn't have the ACT/SAT scores. But when they sent them out to all the schools/academies they sent every test score he took.... We did not want this as he had taken one SAT test just to see if he could score better. He had never taken an SAT and had no idea how to take it. Apparently it is different than the ACT and he used the same strategy by answering all questions.

Needless to say his scores were lower on the SAT and our school sent that out to everyone...... It is too late to change it now and I guess time will tell if that has an affect on the upcoming decisions.

I would recommend everyone to get a "real" copy of the school's transcripts to see what is inside.
 
Actually, if you don't want you test scores on the bottom of transcripts, all you have to do is ask your school counselor (or whomever is in charge of it at your school) and they will take whichever scores you want off.

Not necessarily -- our school district uses a third party (Parchment) for official transcripts. ALL official transcripts sent to college admissions (including the SA's) have to be ordered & paid for through Parchment by the student.
 
Not necessarily -- our school district uses a third party (Parchment) for official transcripts. ALL official transcripts sent to college admissions (including the SA's) have to be ordered & paid for through Parchment by the student.

My school does too. Your school can take them off before they send the transcript to parchment for them to download (or they can send a new copy to parchment to use). Just talk to the counselor. It is their job to work with you to help you get into good schools, and most of the time (if you have a good counselor), they enjoy helping students.
 
It doesn't hurt to ask your counselor. In my DS's case, his ACT scores were 28-35 (9-12 gr), so we're ok with all his scores showing up. Just wanted to reiterate that everyone should see/get a copy of their official transcript so they know what the SAs/colleges are seeing.
 
Our school also had every ACT and SAT test score on the transcript. In order to get around that issue - we checked that our son was "home schooled" on the ACT / SAT application. Therefore, nobody got any test scores unless we approved them first (including his high school).
 
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