What is superscoring?

Nick's answer is that most colleges will cherry-pick a student's best section scores across two test dates and combine them into one superscore. He walks through Johnny, who scored a 30 composite on the ACT twice and came out with a 32 superscore, and he advises students not to auto-send scores when registering so they stay in control of which dates each college sees.

Recorded May 2023.

Transcript

Johnny takes the ACT in April, scores 32 29 32 28 and a 30 composite on the test. Great score, we're really proud of Johnny. Now, Johnny does some more prep in preparation for September of his senior year and you can see his English score went up and his reading score went up. He actually performed a little worse on the math and a little worse on the science versus the first time. So, he has a 30 composite again and Johnny's a little disappointed that it's the exact same total score as the last time he took it, especially after all this hard work and prep he put in.

That doesn't have to be the end of the story. If Johnny takes these two tests and submits them both to the colleges he's applying to, the majority of schools do what's called super scoring, where they will cherry-pick the best subject scores from those two test dates and combine them into a super score. So, now when they're looking at his file, they see a 35 in English, a 34 in reading, that's from this test date, a 29 in math, a 28 in science, that's from this one, and a 32 composite, a much higher score than he ever scored on any individual test Now, along those lines, I want to really encourage students.

Don't automatically send your scores when you're registering for the exam. That that's all optional. You do not need to fill in colleges that you're going to automatically send your scores to. Stay in control of your but when you start to look, you get to that point, you log into your account and say, "Okay, what scores am I going to send to what colleges?" Examine to see if you would qualify for a super score. If you do, submit both tests to those colleges you're applying to, because not every college that does super score states it explicitly on their website. And you always want to give them the opportunity to super score your test. And yes, this does apply to ACT and to SAT.

More explainers for parents: https://www.prepgurus.com/13secrets (the free 13 Secrets to College Admission guide) and https://highschoolreach.com (look up any high school's college outcomes)