SAT-ACT Test Scores Matter Enormously For Both College Admission and Merit Aid

The creation of The Learning Consultants stemmed from a desire to help students reach their potential. That’s the mission.  “Academic potential” is, of course, our practical focus.  But the real mission is to help students reach their human potential.

Our work in becoming the best place in Connecticut for SAT, ACT, and other test prep was a by product of the mission but not the mission itself.  Helping students gain admission to their choice colleges was part of our way of practically helping students and SAT, ACT and other test prep was one way to do it.  We’ve always stayed out of the debate about whether the SAT or ACT should be considered an important part of college admissions.  That’s not our role.  We help students gain admission to college.  If excellence in the arts was critical, we would hire top art teachers.

In any event, colleges try to market themselves as looking at the “whole student” and most do… to a degree.  Grades and test scores are used as blunt instruments to separate most students.  Extracurriculars are very hard to measure on a comparative basis and plus the widely variant strength of student bodies at different high schools throughout the nation (the top Connecticut high schools are simply harder places for students to get As  than those in Mississippi), plus ga

The following is an excerpt from an article in Forbes on the importance of the SAT:

Despite all of this negative noise, standardized tests like the SAT still matter a lot to highly selective colleges.

Two biggest reasons: 

1) It is an effective way to screen out students when the number of  applications is overwhelming

and

2) Colleges admissions offices care a great deal about popular rankings like U.S. News & World Report’s and tests like the SAT have a fairly significant weighting in the formula. For executives running admissions offices at top colleges, moving up on U.S. News list is almost always recognized by the Board of Trustees, and this can mean good things during bonus time.

It is what it is. So plan accordingly.  Register now for our next SAT-ACT Mastery Seminar.