Deciding when/if to retake ACT?

[1bassoon]

This feels like the dumbest question in the world to me, but I'll ask anyways.

 

How do you decide when your child retakes the ACT? Do you just have her retake automatically? Or do you wait to see the scores?

 

Here's why I'm asking:

 

Dd17 took the ACT on Sat. She was PANICKED over it, but afterwards said it really went well. By way of comparison, she felt the PSAT was "easy", and ended up scoring relatively high - I think she missed the NM cutoff by 2 points or something like that. She said the hardest part of the ACT was the trig - not surprising to me.

 

Our life is in flux. There's a good chance that we'll be in the middle of moving, maybe out-of-state, for the June date. Should I go ahead and sign her up for the April test, even though we don't know her scores? Would she be able to improve her scores in the meantime, even if we don't know her weak areas (other than trig)? We do have ACT prep software, which she used *somewhat* faithfully to prep for this.

 

I think our other option would be to wait to see her scores, and then sign up for June.

 

Any advice?

 

I can't wait to get this kiddo "launched" - only b/c I'll feel like then I'll know what I'm doing with the next few kids!!!!

 

TIA

[Kate in FL]

My son took the test the same day. We should be able to get results online starting Feb 22. There is a range of dates on their website, but in our experience with my older son, scores were always available on the earliest date listed. The online score shows composite and the 4 subscores, but not the full breakdown of the subscores. Would that give you enough information to make a decision? I think the last day to register for the April test is March 5.

 

I have found that both of my kids were pretty good at determining how they did after the test without waiting for the scores. It sounds like your daughter is the same way. Is she going for a particular score? My son has decided if he gets a certain score or higher, he will not take it again and instead focus on prepping for SAT2s.