College Application Prep: Your ACT/SAT Score Isn't Everything
The college application process consists of providing several pieces of information to colleges, so they can assess you as a student and determine if they would like to admit you to their school. One of these pieces of information they’ll require is your test scores: ACT or SAT scores. While test scores are a big part of your college application and play a big role in your probability of being accepted to a certain school, there are several other factors that colleges will consider with your application package, so don’t worry if your test score might not quite be up to par for a certain school: make sure to work on these other pieces of your application as well and make them as strong as possible. That may give you the extra boost you need to get accepted to your preferred school.
There are a lot of things that go into a college application. Schools will request everything from your test scores and GPA to your parents’ information and letters of recommendation from your teachers and mentors and more. Each part of your college application is important, but there are certain pieces that do hold more weight than others.
You should make sure to spend extra time on these heavily-weighted parts of your college application. Some you can spend time on as you put together your college application, but some you should be thinking about throughout high school.
Lets take a look at some of the important parts of your college application that you should make sure to spend time on and consider carefully when creating your college applications.
Parts of a college app that hold important weight, why, and what to do about them:
Test Scores
I know that the focus of this post is meant to be the parts of your college app that are important BESIDES your test scores, but we can’t quite ignore your tests scores. Your tests scores will generally play a large role in the admissions process. When referring to “test scores,” schools usually mean your ACT and/or the SAT scores. In addition to GPA, colleges use test scores to determine how likely a student is to keep up with the academics at their specific school. Colleges make public the average ACT/SAT score range of their current student body. It’s smart to do some research and be aware of what these ranges are to know what your goal test score should be in order to be likely to get accepted to a specific school and your probability of keeping up academically at the school. Read our post about determining how to set your ACT goal here: How to Calculate What Your Goal ACT Score Should Be
Alas, we aren’t lying when we say that there’s more to your college app than your test scores. You should for sure strive to hit test scores that fit in with your preferred school’s average score range, but if you fall up short, it’s not necessarily the end of the world. It depends on what the rest of your application looks like.
If you are just below the average ACT range for a certain school, other factors in your application could persuade the school to believe you’ll be a good fit for them. Your GPA, the types of classes you’ve taken throughout high school, involvement in your school, and your essay and/or personal statements will all help to give a college a well-rounded idea of you as a student. If you score only a 19 on the ACT but you have a GPA of 3.8 and have taken high-level courses throughout high school, a school may put less emphasis on your ACT score, as it likely doesn’t reflect the effort you put in as a student.
Each student’s situation is unique, so make sure to consider all the parts of your college application like the pieces of a puzzle. It’s your job to make sure that the puzzle you put forth is appealing to the schools you’re applying to. If your test scores don’t do your academic ability justice, make sure to compensate for that in these other areas:
GPA
Your GPA, or Grade Point Average, follows your general academic track record through high school, so this isn’t really something that you can work on improving last-minute. For most high schools, GPA is ranked on a scale of 0 - 4.0 with 4.0 being straight A’s throughout all of high school. Some schools will measure on a scale that goes even higher, with certain courses being worth more points based on their difficulty level. Your GPA is an aspect of your college application that will be heavily assessed by college admissions teams. Some schools will also keep track of class rank. Class rank is determined by simply putting the members of your graduating class in order of highest GPA to lowest GPA. Some high schools don’t find it useful to measure class rank, so this may not be reported to you. Either way, reporting your GPA and class rank (if available) will give colleges an idea of your overall academic performance from a long-term perspective. This is important because they will use this to determine your likelihood of doing well as a student at their college. For colleges that are known for being academically rigorous, a high GPA is very encouraging to admissions staff that you will excel at their school. For this reason, it’s important to be aware of the academic difficulty of the schools you are applying to, not only to determine if you will be likely to be accepted, but also to determine if you will be likely to succeed there or if you will be more likely to hate your entire college career and never leave the library because you are constantly struggling with the coursework.
If your test scores are not quite high enough to convince a school that you will be a good fit for them, your GPA can do a lot to persuade them. A strong GPA tells schools that you have put forth effort over the course of 4 years to make sure you are learning and maintaining good grades. This says a lot about how studious a student is and the care they put into their education. In many cases, your GPA is equally as important as your test scores.
Types of Classes Taken
You will be required to include an official transcript with your college applications. This is something that you’ll have to request from your high school. The whole idea is to prove what you’ve already told the school about your GPA and class rank and to illustrate the types of courses that you have taken during high school. Colleges will review your transcript to determine how many high-level and AP classes you’ve taken, the number of English, math, and science classes you’ve taken, and so on.
This part of your application usually holds a bit less weight, but it can actually help a lot, specifically if your GPA is lower than you would like due to a history of taking rigorous courses. For example, the student with a 3.1 GPA that has taken several AP classes may be seen in a better light than the student with the 3.9 GPA that has taken only lower-level courses, exploratory courses, and “slacker” classes like gym class and cooking. We’re not saying that there’s anything wrong with gym class or cooking class, but schools do analyze your GPA in comparison to the level of difficulty of the courses you’ve taken throughout high school. After all, that is what your ACT score measures: how well you have performed in the classes you’ve taken. That being said, schools need to know what courses those are.
This is another part of your college application that you can’t start thinking about during senior year. A strong GPA takes four years of hard work and focus on academics. Your GPA is the average of your performance across each quarter, trimester, or semester of high school. That being said, it’s always easiest to change the average of a set of numbers when there are fewer numbers in the set. It will be easiest to change and correct your GPA earlier on in high school than it will be your senior year.
The takeaway: start thinking about the health of your GPA as soon as possible during high school. We know most freshmen aren’t thinking about college applications, but the reality is that the classes that you take as a freshman AND the classes you take as a sophomore, junior, and senior are all included on your official transcript that is presented to the schools that you apply to. Students are wise to take core courses during their first year of high school to allow them to build up to higher classes in all areas each year but specifically in math and languages, as these are courses that generally have significant prerequisites. Most schools have certain courses that are required of students at certain grade levels, but when it comes to exploratory classes that you get to choose, don’t fill your schedule with pottery and field hockey. At least not too much. Colleges like to see high-level courses. They like to see AP classes and even college courses. The 4.0 student whose schedule is full of “slacker” courses does not fool the admissions counselors.
So, if you’ve filled your schedule with difficult courses, fear not if your GPA does not measure up to your overall knowledge level and academic ability. Schools will not look over your course selections and will take these into account as they consider your college application in full.
Essay/Personal Statement
While all schools will require you to include your test scores, GPA, and transcript with your application, this is an area where the requirements for schools start to change more drastically. Certain schools will have several essay and personal statement prompts that you are required to include with your application. Others may only require the 650-word Common App essay. This is where you’ll want to make sure you know the precise requirements of the schools you’ll apply to, and then take your time crafting well-thought-out, strong responses.
This is a part of your application that you DO NOT have to start thinking about when you are 15 and fresh into high school, but make sure you don't rush the process either. Ponder your essay topic(s) for a while and put some heart into your writing. This is the part of your college app that really allows you to tell colleges anything else that you feel is important to include and that has not yet been touched upon through the rest of your application. Many students choose to write about major life experiences that have molded them into the person they’ve become. Others will use this time to write about their leadership experiences or aspirations. Some students use this space to offer an explanation for GPA or test scores that may not be up to the particular school’s standard. The options are really endless — at least for the Common App essay, since you get to choose what you write about. For other applications with more specific prompts, take the same amount of care in pondering your response and make sure to obtain feedback from others before submitting anything to colleges.
Your essays and personal statements will give the colleges a glimpse of you as a person, so take your time crafting writing that you’re proud of and that sends the message you’re looking for. Including a memorable essay just might give your application the push that it needs if your tests scores and GPA aren’t quite meeting a school’s standards.
Community/School Involvement
Colleges will not only want to accept students that will thrive academically at their schools, but they’ll also look for leaders and community members who care about the community and make sure to be a part of it. Hopefully you have not been sitting around for four years doing nothing with your time outside of school. Chances are you actually have a ton of stuff that you’ve been busy doing for the last few years already on your resume. This is great — you’ll have plenty of things to include on your college app. While it may not seem like an important aspect of your application package, this is essentially your personal “resume” and will tell the schools you’re applying to a lot about you and what’s important to you. Schools will assess your leadership abilities, involvement with your community, and other traits that they find appealing for students they want to accept into their school.
The big takeaway: there are a lot of things that go into a college application, and you’ll be assessed for more than just your test scores. Test scores are important because they are consistent across the nation — all students take the same ACT and SAT exams. This gives colleges a way to compare students from different places and different schools, which might be otherwise difficult to do. But you are not simply the result of your ACT or SAT test. Schools analyze your overall success in high school, the level to which you’ve challenged yourself with your course selections, your involvement in your community, and more. They try to look at the student as a whole, but they do also need to assess whether they think you’ll be able to succeed academically at their school — no school wants to admit students that they think will not thrive within their level of academics, so keep that in mind as you prepare your application. Put care and heart into your essays and start thinking about the pieces of your application as early as possible. This is an exciting, frustrating, scary time, but it will be so worth it when you’re off to start school at your preferred college!