If your daughter is not doing well on the ACT, have her try the SAT. Keep in mind that they are two different tests; people who do well on one commonly do poorly on the other. However, please also be aware that even if she takes it 100 times, her score will not change too much. There is no way she can magically score 10 or 20 points higher. She needs to come to terms with her score and consider taking the SAT instead.

Georgetown University in DC is extremely competitive– only 22% of applicants get in. Last year, over 4000 people applied there early action (meaning, they were committing themselves to that college if they got accepted), and less than 900 people were admitted, and only 475 enrolled. If your daughter has a 4.0 GPA unweighted, she should have no problem getting into a decent college. However, if her expectations are set too high, it could be traumatic if she doesn’t get into her first choice college.

The thing to do is have her sign up at http://www.collegeboard.com if she hasn’t already. Have her research colleges. At CollegeBoard, they show the standards of colleges, as well as the average SAT and ACT scores for last year’s freshman. For instance, the middle 50% of Georgetown’s students received a 27-32 on the ACT. How does your daughter compare to this? Keep in mind that middle 50% means that 25% scored below that range.

If your daughter’s friends continue putting her down, encourage her to make some new ones. College planning is a critical time in one’s life and condescending friends are not something she needs. Yes, her ACT is important, but you’re right, her GPA is as well. Colleges have different views on what are the most important admission factors. Again, have your daughter look at CollegeBoard. Good luck.

She can take the ACT again. My brother is a 4.00 but got like a 20 on the ACT. He’s taking it again soon. If you want to help her, then help her study for it. Find full-length practice tests, and partial length portions of the test in her weaker areas, and have her take the tests with a strict timer. Don’t let her answer questions she didn’t get to, the testers won’t either. This is especially useful in the reading and writing sections. Then, help her find the correct answers and understand why she missed the questions that she did. I did these kinds of drills and got a 35 in the reading section. I emphasize that she needs to retake the test because the GPA often accounts for only about half of the decision making process, with the ACT score taking up a majority of the other half.

The only bad thing about retaking the test is the money that you pay to take it. Colleges only look at your highest score, and sometimes will even take the highest of each section, and create a best-case composite score. So even if she bombs, she’ll still have her 21. And I’m sure she’ll feel much more comfortable having taken the test before, so she knows the types of things she’s in for. In a competitive market for admission and scholarships, it can never hurt to be above the recommendation.

You didn’t mention if your daughter did any prepping before taking the test. I found it raised my score 8 points from prepping. I had an SAT tutor, but we didn’t go over ACT stuff until the week before the test. I got a 32 on that practice one, 33 on the real one, 35 the second time i took it (A few months before we did a practice at my school and i got a 27) so The princeton review helped a lot. And destressing did too. Colleges only have to see your best score, so make sure she doesn’t stress.

you may find this website to b useful….

http://www.actstudent.org/

I got a 25 on my ACT score and graduated with a 3.4 GPA…. a lot of schools were interested in me and I even received a scholarship…. Just keep encouraging her and let her know that even though others may have a higher score, that indeed schools will NOT only look at that… in fact depending on how prestigious of a school you are looking into, they will look into everything, including extra cirriculur activities, etc…. But again, just look at the website, they have TONS of info on the test as well as some practice tests and online practices you can look into! Good luck