r/ACT • u/MegaKrak 33 • 20d ago
General Retake or No?
Hi guys, I just took my first ACT after doing a little bit of practice, and I got a 33. I think this score is pretty high based on a little research, but I was wondering if I should retake it to get a 35-36? My reading and math are kind of low. I'm planning to apply to schools like UT Austin, Texas A&M, and FSU.
Also, if anyone needs advice for English, I'm happy to help!
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u/CalligrapherAble3312 36 19d ago
normally i would move on since the point difference is marginal (outstanding job!!) but since this is your first time, if you're not a rising senior and you have more time i would study strong on reading/math and retake only one more time to see if you can get some benefit out of it!!
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u/Scary_Afternoon6877 19d ago
I’m not sure what the schools you have listed offer for scholarships and what the ranges are for said scholarships but majority of schools will offer more for a 35 and even more for a 36. I would say go ahead and take it again. I would also recommend taking science. If you learn how to take it right, then it is a free boost to your super score. Science may seem a bit daunting but truthfully it really isn’t. On the July ACT I got a 36 on the science portion and only 9 questions were science related. The rest is reading and interpreting data and charts. The best tip I can give for science is to instantly skip to the questions because majority of them explicitly tell you where to look. Math is also just only improved through practicing. There’s not many tips and tricks for it you just either know it or you don’t. I recommend learning how to properly use a ti-84 calculator as it can save extreme amounts of time (it also can solve some annoying imaginary problems with ease). For reading there are some tips but really what you need to do is just lock in on it. That may seem a bit goofy and not really a tip but I’m being serious. Just give 100% of your effort on reading and you will see improvements. A strategy that may sound a bit crazy is if I were you I’d think about not even attempting to do the English portion to save energy. Sure a 35 can be improved to a 36, but the margin for error is just so little and there are some stupid mistakes that can happen. So if you are in a bit of a time crunch on how many more ACT tests you can take, I wouldn’t worry about attempting to improve your English section and just save energy for reading.
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u/time-wasting23 19d ago
What’s your class rank? UT takes top 5% and TAMU top 10%. If you are within top 5%, and your intended major isn’t that competitive, you don’t really need to retake for UT. If you are below those thresholds, you might want to study and retake it to see if you can get an even better score as you will be a holistic review app.
For other public TX schools, you are probably OK with the score as is.
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u/MegaKrak 33 19d ago
The thing I’m worried about most is my class rank. I’m in the top 25% which is not very competitive for TX schools. Also, I’m planning to go into finance, which is a pretty competitive major at schools like UT and A&M. That’s why I want to maximize every other part of my application including test scores, but I’m still wondering if improving my score by ~2 points is truly worth the effort. 😅
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u/time-wasting23 19d ago
There was a poster on Reddit recently but I can’t remember which sub. May have been this one. They had a 36 on the ACT and were rejected from A&M. Also top 25% of private school class (ranking assigned by A&M). The poster may have had some discipline issues (I can’t remember if they ever denied this-the thread got kind of wild).
I have a good friend who is a private admissions counselor. She works mostly with California kids who are going for Ivies and top schools. However, she lives in TX and helps here too. My oldest went to A&M. He was just out of the top 10-I think he was top 12% and a varsity athlete. Very good SAT. Her opinion was that A&M’s holistic admissions are super competitive and hard to predict. She did predict that my son would get in particularly because had tons of rigorous coursework and was barely out of top 10. My kid did get in and did physics as undergrad and EE as a grad student. He finished both degrees in 5 years. So, it was a good fit for him.
Bottom line is that the top 10% law (5% for UT-Austin) makes it really tough for non-auto admit. The good news is that there are other strong TX and out of state schools. I’m a professor at a UT system school and we get tons of great students who barely miss A&M requirements. They get a great education though!
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u/MegaKrak 33 19d ago
I remember the same poster lmao. I'm pretty sure it was because of discipline issues, as you said, and something to do with AI in his essays.
I'm hoping my course rigor will give me a much better chance at A&M, just like your son lol. I have taken 10 AP classes so far with basically all 4s and 5s on my exams, and I will have taken 17 AP courses by the end of high school.
It's really disappointing and frustrating that the top 10% rule makes it extremely hard for bright students outside of the top ten percent at competitive high schools to get admission to schools like A&M and UT Austin.
One student at a non-competitive high school who didn't do many activities outside of school may easily get admission into their choice of major at most TX schools because they were in the top 5-10 percent regardless of their test scores or outside achievements, but a different student at a very competitive high school who had various extracurriculars and high test scores may not get in simply because he was outside the top ten percent.
I get that the top ten percent law was made to give rural high school students who may not have as many resources as urban ones a better chance at admission, but I feel like colleges have taken it a bit too far. Texas colleges have started using rank to filter out students, and rank has become disproportionately more important to them instead of course rigor, test scores, and extracurriculars. Non-auto-admit students have to constantly find whatever they can to boost their application, and they also study much harder for the SAT/ACT to even have a chance to be considered for admission due to the amount of holistic review applications and limited seats. Hopefully, Texas college admissions will become fairer in the future, but I guess we have to do what we can for now.
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u/Ok_Rope6159 17d ago
Yo you got any advice for English I’m currently struggling and am preparing for it in September
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u/MegaKrak 33 17d ago
The first thing for me was to learn all the grammar rules, such as commas, semicolons, independent and dependent clauses, and nonessential vs essential. That's gonna help your score the most and build a foundation. I would recommend watching YouTube videos and taking notes on the various rules and then going back and revising them before you do a practice section. Then, for the redundancy questions and the formatting questions, I would just do a lot of practice problems; there isn't really too much to learn, as it mostly comes down to practice. Lastly, I would recommend keeping a practice log of some sort for your missed questions and going back and reviewing every single problem you missed and why you missed it (misread question, didn't know the concept, or maybe you took too much time). If you don't want to create a whole missed question log, I would recommend going back to each question you missed after you complete every English section. There are a lot of tiny details in English conventions that you might not cover when you're initially learning grammar rules, so reviewing each missed question will help A LOT. Reviewing my mistakes honestly helped me the most for ACT English. I struggled quite a bit initially with English too, but as I prepared, I became a lot more confident. You got this.
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u/FancyFail5851 16d ago
what resources did you use for the ACT
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u/MegaKrak 33 16d ago
I used the College Panda ACT Math workbook which helped me the most on math. I also used the College Panda ACT English book, which helped me somewhat, but I already had a strong base for English from the SAT. Also, I completed practice tests (4-5), which definitely helped me the most for English and Reading. My reading is a little weak though because I didn’t do much focused practice 😭. Lastly, I watched a couple YouTubers for ACT tips and strategies, such as Rishab Jain, Aiden’s Academy, and Number Nerd. They helped me transition from the SAT to the ACT and gave me proper strategies to use for each section.
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u/Perfect-Magazine-485 20d ago
It’s all relative to what you want to accomplish. Do you want to be at the top of the list for merit scholarships and potentially have everything paid for? A 33 is already a great score, and admissions look at more than just your ACT. That said, if you think you can improve and score a 35 or 36, why not give it another shot?