Test writing is a highly complicated scientific process that takes the College Board and ACT organization years to perfect.  The selection of question type and order has a major impact on the scoring of the exam and to attempt to recreate something that would give an accurate score is near impossible.  For this reason, we only recommend that students use real tests for practice and have all of our students purchase copies of The College Board’s Official SAT Study Guide and the ACT’s Real ACTs. Furthermore, other companies that write their own tests tend to overload them with techniques that they teach and often give their hardest test first and their easiest test last to show a dramatic score improvement.  We like to take a more honest approach to score improvement and instill genuine confidence in our students.

We don’t like to offer averages as each student is different, which is why we recommend that each student begin their test prep journey with a StratEDGEy Session.  At this session, students will meet with their instructor and will discuss their starting scores and Dream Schools and the instructors will make a personalized recommendation on the sufficient number of sessions a student will need to achieve the score necessary to gain acceptance to their Dream School.  Most students tend to complete at least 10 tutoring sessions in order to see a 250+ point improvement on the SAT or a 4 point improvement on the ACT.

The simple answer is the earlier the better.  It is becoming more and more common for college coaches to request SAT and ACT scores as early as sophomore year/beginning of junior year.  Coaches try to round out their teams and in order to make offers to players, they need to know where their SAT/ACT scores are to make sure that they are in an acceptable range for the school.  Many teams also work on an average system where they take a team average GPA and SAT/ACT score, so if some players have high SAT/ACT scores early on, they can balance out players with lower test scores.

There really is no set number of times you should take the exam.  On the one hand, you can take it as many times as you like without ever having colleges see your scores, but on the other hand, you don’t want to burn yourself out and take it so many times that your score starts to drop.  On average, most students will take the exam 2-4 times before settling on a score.

There really is no set “good” score.  Most Ivy League schools require scores in the 30s (the exam is graded out of a 36), and most schools in the tier below Ivy will require scores above a 25.  However, there are many schools that will take scores above a 20.  It all depends on what you consider to be a “good school.”

Yes!  Unlike the SAT, which is a negative marking exam, the ACT only awards points for correct answers (and does NOT take points off for wrong answers).  This basically means that a wrong answer is the same as an omit, so there is absolutely no harm in guessing.  Never leave any questions blank; even if you are running out of time at the end of a second just bubble in everything.

Only if you want them to!  The ACT organization allows you to select the specific test dates to send to colleges, so you could take it as many times as you want and only send 1 or 2 test date’s scores.

The ACT tests a student’s knowledge of grammar, math from arithmetic to basic trigonometry, reading comprehensive, and the ability to interpret scientific experiments and read charts and graphs.  It is designed for students who have completed half of their junior year’s curriculum and does NOT require any scientific memorization.

The ACT is another standardized test that colleges will use to evaluate how well a student will do in college. It is scored differently than the SAT, with a maximum score of a 36, instead of a 2400. It is also structured differently than the SAT, with four sections: Math, Reading, Writing, and Science. The other difference is that the essay on the ACT is not required, whereas it is required on the SAT. Students are not required to take both tests and a student should probably decide which test to take after taking diagnostic tests for both. If a student does considerably better in one than the other, then the student should focus on preparing for that test; however, most students will do equally well on both tests.