PP here -my kids score went up by over 200 points after the third try, just from practice/self-study at home, ignore the PP who think you cap out at three....

I would let your kid drive this decision - I have a kid who took the test multiple (more than 6 times) and score improved dramatically over time. Don't limit your kid if they want to keep taking, it is super random.

Take it as many times as you can handle it to get your score. Know someone who took it 8 times to get 35. Now at Penn. Another kid took it 4 times (with extra time) to hit 34. Headed to Yale next fall. Etc, etc.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:My kid got a 30 on the ACT on the first four attempts. Then a 33 on the fifth try. Hello, Northwestern. You only have to nail it once.

Yep

Congrats!! It think some of the (misguided) undercurrent of frustration and maybe envy(?) is from people on this board whose kids get 1500+ the first time and still strike out with their T-10 applications.

Anonymous wrote:My kid got a 30 on the ACT on the first four attempts. Then a 33 on the fifth try. Hello, Northwestern. You only have to nail it once.

Yep

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:take it up to 3 times.

if you get a great score 1st sitting or 2nd time, stop there.

People plateau by their 3rd time and then it's just a waste of time.

Up to 3 times? This is why standardized tests don't carry much weight. Mediocre UMC white kids can just throw money at the test via extensive tutoring and superscore.

Sorry, but mediocre white kids don’t get high scores, they get mediocre scores. If you take a practice test and get a mediocre 1100 - the highest you likely get with test prep is 1300.

High scores are not easy to get. I know plenty of 4.0 students who cannot get into the 1400s, despite test prep. They don’t have the academic preparation.

Unless she's going to do something very different than she did the first and second time, her score is unlikely to go up. She doesn't want STEM, so have her spend her time writing excellent essays that stand out and researching the colleges she's applying to so she can say why she wants to go to those schools in particular.

Anonymous wrote:take it up to 3 times.

if you get a great score 1st sitting or 2nd time, stop there.

People plateau by their 3rd time and then it's just a waste of time.

Up to 3 times? This is why standardized tests don't carry much weight. Mediocre UMC white kids can just throw money at the test via extensive tutoring and superscore.

My kid got a 30 on the ACT on the first four attempts. Then a 33 on the fifth try. Hello, Northwestern. You only have to nail it once.

Anonymous wrote:From Inside Admissions office Podcast

“A good thing that we know about are SAT dates, ACT dates. Well, we do know that students will peak about the third time they take the test. Statistically, there's no point in taking it any more than three times.

So if you want the third time that you take one of these tests to be roughly around August, September, the fall of your senior year, give a couple months before that to study and then work backwards and fill in those test dates.”

From Inside the Admissions Office: Advice from Former Admissions Officers: 111. Expert Admissions Tips for Juniors from UC Berkeley & UChicago Experts, Apr 25, 2025
https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/inside-the-admissions-office-advice-from-former/id1480853742?i=1000700652422&r=594
This material may be protected by copyright.

NP. Their premise is wrong. It isn't the number of times that matters. What matters is when you take the test relative to your high school academic career, i.e., the status of your academic skills, as well as relative to any prep, particularly one-on-one prep.

Most students score higher the later they test, except that they then top out around some score level if they don't have the potential to be high scorers. Meanwhile, it's more convenient to have a high score on the earlier side for forming a college list, and so we end up with different timeframes for different students. To complicate the question further, the new digital format seems a bit less consistent for scoring than the older paper version.

Conventional wisdom is 3. My DC did 4, but there was really no need for the 4th (he insisted on getting a perfect math score, mostly for his ego lol).

Anonymous wrote:take it up to 3 times.

if you get a great score 1st sitting or 2nd time, stop there.

People plateau by their 3rd time and then it's just a waste of time.

Wrong. DS went from 1300 on the third try to 1540 on the sixth try.

Stop at 3

take it up to 3 times.

if you get a great score 1st sitting or 2nd time, stop there.

People plateau by their 3rd time and then it's just a waste of time.

From Inside Admissions office Podcast

“A good thing that we know about are SAT dates, ACT dates. Well, we do know that students will peak about the third time they take the test. Statistically, there's no point in taking it any more than three times.

So if you want the third time that you take one of these tests to be roughly around August, September, the fall of your senior year, give a couple months before that to study and then work backwards and fill in those test dates.”

From Inside the Admissions Office: Advice from Former Admissions Officers: 111. Expert Admissions Tips for Juniors from UC Berkeley & UChicago Experts, Apr 25, 2025
https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/inside-the-admissions-office-advice-from-former/id1480853742?i=1000700652422&r=594
This material may be protected by copyright.