There is no magic number-- but it should factor in: 1) a consideration of how much time you need to study in order to improve from your baseline score, and 2) if your starting level is close, or very far from your ultimate target score you hope to apply to college with.
In short: can you take the test once and get your desired score? Or will you need to put in a lot of time and effort and try multiple times?
Typically, we recommend that students take the SAT or ACT at least once (even those who are self-identified ‘bad test-takers’ should still give it a shot before only considering test-optional colleges), twice is best, a recommended maximum of three times unless something horrible and unpredictable happened and you need to give it a fourth try.
It’s very important to take a diagnostic of both a full-length SAT and full-length ACT. This can save you a bunch of time later on by 1) first determining which test you are best suited to which, 2) could very importantly helping you get a better score! (because colleges really don’t care which test you take!), and 3) will evaluate if you were to take an official test today, what would your score be?
Both the SAT and ACT cover material that is most suitable for students who have completed two years of high school already. That means that it is a bit of a waste of time to start too early, unless you are a prodigy, you just won’t be ready for it. You should never just take the SAT formally in order to do a baseline test score. If you end up applying to a college that asks to see all of your scores, they will see any of these ones you decided to just take for practice! This is what the PSAT (offered in US schools) is for, as well as real old SAT’s that the College Board makes available. Take advantage of them!
You should space the time in between your tests so that you have enough time to do more preparation and work on improving your score. You should never walk into an SAT having done no prep since your last test or no clue what your score range might be. In order to be a reliable metric that colleges use in order to predict academic success, each test must also be at a reliable level of difficulty. So, you should also reliably have some idea of how you will do! If you haven’t made time for preparation since your last test, you should consider rescheduling.
Will Colleges Know How Many Times You Took the SAT or ACT?
For the majority of colleges, you may use “Score Choice” and manually select which test score dates (but all sections from one date will be delivered!) to send to a college. If you are using superscoring, you may send two test dates with your highest Math score and Verbal scores, if they weren’t on the same test date.
There are some colleges that will ask for ALL of the test score information and so you MUST send all scores from all dates you have taken the test. This means that in your strategy for applying to these schools, you cannot totally negate reviewing for one section of the test even if it is already your ‘strong’ section. For example, you scored an 800 in Math and a 620 Verbal. You spend months working on Verbal. Don’t totally sweep by math if you are planning to apply to the colleges below for the next test sitting. If you accidentally fumble math because your focus was completely on Verbal, colleges will also see that, and it may raise some eyebrows.
Which colleges will ask for all of your scores to be sent?*
(*not a full list, just notable ones current of this posting! Always check the website of the college for the most updated rules)
The ACT does not pre-calculate the superscored ACT in a score report that goes to colleges. This means that the colleges you apply to see all of the individual ACT raw scores before they themselves superscore the ACT.
Some colleges might use computers to do the calculations for them, in which case the admissions officers won’t spend time perusing each of your scores. But what if they do it themselves? It’s hard to say that an admissions officer seeing a lower score won’t at least subconsciously influence them and cause them to wonder—what happened there?
If you continue to do practice tests and are coming in at a 31, but get a 27, you should re-test. But if you or your tutor think your skill level is at 32 and you get a 33, and you’ve already taken the test three times, it’s best not to risk it to see if you can ‘get lucky’ another time.
If they see that you have taken the test many times, they may wonder if your test results are because you have been prepping all the time and trying to get “lucky” or is it really a true measure of our abilities.
If a college has an official superscoring policy, then they will likely follow it. PrepScholar has the most comprehensive list of all colleges that superscore the ACT and the SAT, so take a look to see if the colleges you are interested in applying to are on there.
The Superscore Preparation Strategy
If you are going to be applying to colleges that have an official superscore policy for the SAT/ACT, then you’ll want strategize your preparation to maximize your score for different sections each time. Since many of the students I work with tend to be quite strong in math, and it is sometimes the easier section to make rapid improvements on, we have students focus on get as close to an 800 as possible.
Finally, keep in mind that if you live outside of the US, we can be thankful for some new test dates in the 2020-21 cycle. However, with phenomena like coronavirus and other random test cancellations, it is wise to register far in advance and come up with a Plan A and Plan B. Space out your test dates, and start planning early so that you can still make a contingency plan if needed. Some of our students now take the SAT in the US for the August date, wrapping it in with the a college tour and intensive SAT prep while school is not in session can make a lot of sense for some students. Standardized testing is required still for international students by most competitive US colleges and universities, and while it shouldn’t overly consume your schedule and college preparation process, you can get ahead of the crunch and anxiety by starting to think about scheduling and preparation in 9th and 10th grades. In a holistic review like most US colleges do, you can’t sacrifice all of your time to reach perfection in one area like standardized testing and let other areas not develop, such as your grades and extra-curriculars.
If you have more questions about when and how to prepare for your US university testing, please get in touch!
