Verballed: But struggling to meet required ACT admission score to get in

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Jul 4, 2014
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My DD has verballed to a really strong academic school and is a 2019. She's a good student, but not top of her class. The University she wants to go to and has verballed to requires a 24 on ACT to get admitted. She didn't get the score on her 1st attempt, and was about 4 points off. Were taking the test again next month and using ACT tutoring program. Hopefully she eventually gets the score in the next year. But if she doesn't get it, at what point do you give up on it and look at other schools? If we wait too long, we could blow any chance at a scholarship. Wonder if anybody has been in this boat?

She really likes this school, but we did have some other schools showing interest before verballing.

Don't give up. If that's where she wants to go, she'll find a way to get herself there.

Just a couple of tips when DD took the ACT. The first time DD wrote it was December of her sophomore year. She did an ACT prep program. When she wrote the diagnostic for the first time (without having any exposure to any standardize tests), she scored a 29. It was a good score. But she needed to be in the 99th percentile to be seriously considered by some of the NESCAC and NEWMAC schools (she's a tiny pitcher - 5'3"). So here's what we did to help her get there. But before I go into the tips, a lot of this will fall on the shoulders of your DD and that's why I said, if that's where she wants to go, she'll find a way to get herself there.

Here's tip #1:
Going for prep is not enough. Your DD needs to write practice tests regularly. I cannot emphasize enough the amount of practice she needs to do. And when I say practice, I mean writing practice tests. DD did an 8 week intensive prep course (ran us an insane amount of money) - with 6 hour lessons every Saturday and Sunday for 8 weeks. Going to lessons is one thing, but you cannot get better without the practice. Here's a prime example of what happened before she started practicing seriously: After her weekend lessons, DD would write 1 test and even with the prep, she was still scoring 30, maybe 31. I did a ton of research and every thing I read said, "practice, practice, practice". So half way through the program, we switched gears. Every night, after her homework, she'd do one section of a practice test, regardless how late it was.

Tip #2: There's a ton of practice tests available for free on the web. I printed off over half a dozen full actual tests from past years. I also purchased that giant Red ACT book but to be honest, there was so many free tests that she hardly touched the book I purchased. And every night she'd write a section (not the entire test - just a section - ie. English - Reading, or Math or Science) and score it.

Tip #3: Once she'd scored it, we'd sit and discuss what she did wrong. If they were careless mistakes, she'd explain what she would do to stop making these mistakes. If it wasn't something she understood or needed to learn, she'd take that to her prep course the following weekend and learn the material. By writing countless practice tests, she truly got better.

Tip #4: Write each section like you would in an actual test setting. Silence with a watch next to you. Each test will tell you how much time you have for each section. This way, you can time yourself better. Running out of time is the costliest mistake you can make on a standardize test because it's preventable.

By changing the way she learnt, DD's "home score" went from 30/31 to 34-36 as she neared her actual writing date. The first time she wrote it in her sophomore year, she scored a 34 (and chewed her nails to the quick - despite all that practice, she was nervous as hell!). The 2nd time she wrote it in her junior year she scored a 35. She did admit to me that she regretted not putting in the effort for her 2nd write. She felt that she could have done better. She didn't prepare as well as she did her first write. (Even she recognizes it.)

Anyway, she coached one of her teammates using the same method and her teammate scored a 29 on her first write. Her teammate's first diagnostic was a 22. The secret is in the practice.

Finally, Tip #5: I guarantee you that a great score will get your DD a LOT of looks - even if she's tiny or not very fast. DD got more looks with her score than the other pitchers on our team who threw substantially faster and who were taller than her. For example, at the Colorado Fireworks at one particular game, there were 13 college coaches watching our game. Of the 13, 10 were there specifically to see DD and she's the smallest of ALL her teammates.

Hope this helps.
 
Nov 3, 2012
480
16
Also, does the school superscore? If they do, have your DD concentrate on one section, take it, and if her score is good on that section she can focus on the other.
We talked to the coach last week, and he told us that the school just switched to a super score. Were hoping this helps. Improves our chances
 

JAD

Feb 20, 2012
8,231
38
Georgia
We talked to the coach last week, and he told us that the school just switched to a super score. Were hoping this helps. Improves our chances

Great, Superscoring will help! Tell your DD to not give up and get her a private tutor. Have her work some of the online sample tests at home until she gets comfortable. There is a lot of money riding on the ACT, so make it a priority.
 
Nov 3, 2012
480
16
Great, Superscoring will help! Tell your DD to not give up and get her a private tutor. Have her work some of the online sample tests at home until she gets comfortable. There is a lot of money riding on the ACT, so make it a priority.

My wife just signed her up for a tutoring course working with an online tutor. Dropped some $$$$ on the tutor, but hopefully its a good investment. Im going to get some online tests to work with her. I think the 1st ACT test is a wake-up call. We bought an ACT program that had test questions, but she only used infrequently. Im hoping that this motivates her. Their is a lot of scholarship money on the line, so were making sure she works on this.
 
Aug 29, 2011
2,581
83
NorCal
A private tutor as opposed to a "prep class" is a great idea.

I also can not stress enough that she should try to take full practice tests under test conditions as often as she can stand it. Yes it is hard to block out that much time to take a full sample test but do it. We would leave with our younger daughter so the house was empty and block out either half the time and do the "english" or "math" or if we had the full time we'd do that. We tried to do that at least once every 2 to 3 weekend.

You should also devote some time each day, doesn't have to be much, like 10 - 30 minutes to work on sample problems.

These can work wonders. The more familiarity she has with the material the easier it is. It's kind of like softball practice. If you don't practice, you're probably not going to perform in games, if you don't work sample problems you're probably not going to do well on the test.

With my daughter time management was the biggest issue on these long test so we found forcing her to do the full practice test under timed conditions was very helpful for her.

With us it was SAT as opposed to ACT but I'm assuming the strategies are the same.
 

JAD

Feb 20, 2012
8,231
38
Georgia
My wife just signed her up for a tutoring course working with an online tutor. Dropped some $$$$ on the tutor, but hopefully its a good investment. Im going to get some online tests to work with her. I think the 1st ACT test is a wake-up call. We bought an ACT program that had test questions, but she only used infrequently. Im hoping that this motivates her. Their is a lot of scholarship money on the line, so were making sure she works on this.

Good luck and please keep us posted!
 
Oct 3, 2011
3,478
113
Right Here For Now
A private tutor versus a class type program is the way to go. Also, the more time she takes ACT practice tests, which a good tutor will administer, the more relaxed she'll probably become taking the real one. Taking the real one several times on top of this, will only further it. That said, be EXTREMELY CAREFUL about how you and your family go about this! A great student can still choke on a test if they feel undue pressure, such as you reinforcing how much money may be riding on this or whether she'll be admitted or not, no matter how many times she takes it or how well she's prepared.
 
Last edited:
Oct 1, 2014
2,219
113
USA
Glad I caught this thread...some really good info here, thanks to everyone who has shared and good luck to those whose kids are taking the test. My twins are set to take the ACT on Feb 10th, this will be they're first attempt with it. Given what has been discussed here we're feeling a bit behind the 8 ball with prep & practice for it and not a whole lot of time to do anything about it. They are in 10th grade and scored pretty well on the PSAT so this should give us a decent baseline experience and they'll still have future opportunities to re-test and hopefully improve. The common wisdom seems to be to hire a private tutor and get lots of practice which makes perfect sense. Fingers crossed for this one!
 

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