About those exams — don’t sweat it

My ACT test experience rating: Two out of five stars. Would not recommend to a friend. It was 7:30 a.m. (too early), and I wasn’t able to eat the Payday candy bar in my bag because the testing area was a “No Nut No Mango Zone.” There was a draft near where my assigned seat was, and having to see upperclassmen from all over Santa Fe while I looked like a scrub wasn’t all that pleasant, either. My elbow-to-elbow table buddy erased a little too vigorously during the essay portion and left those nice rubbery shavings everywhere, which somehow wound up in my pencil case, bag and even hair.

The only thing I enjoyed were the breaks in between sessions.

I can’t say that I found my college testing experience all that valuable despite the fact that I took it twice and devoted several after-school and lunch hours to test prep. “That one point can make the difference between an acceptance and rejection letter,” the counselors, College Confidential Forums, and peers repeatedly said to me.

Caught up in the heat of junior year college research, I believed it all. I believed that I would face rejection if I didn’t take two subject tests, score a five on every AP exam or hit anything below an A on my transcripts. We are constantly told that our test scores and transcripts define who we are to a college admissions officer, but as a senior who has managed to survive Decision Day, I can say with confidence that it’s only partially true.

All throughout the application process, the term “holistic admissions” and “context” were beaten into my brain, but I never believed them to be true. While I still have some level of doubt when the term “holistic” is carelessly thrown around while affirmative action still exists in the majority of universities, when it comes to test scores, “holistic” is true.

A student with a great test score isn’t guaranteed an acceptance — and the same holds true that a student with lower scores will earn an automatic rejection. There are still several other weighted factors to take into account, such as the personal essay and a student’s involvement with activities outside of school and during the summer.

And in talking to admissions officers during fall visitation programs, they said a “good score” can be how well a student did based on the resources they had access to. For instance, if a student scores a 30 on the ACT and their school’s average is a 22, the score is better than a student who scores a 30 when the school’s average is 30. It can also be assumed that wealthier students have the ability to retake tests several times (the ACT alone costs $62.50 with the essay portion), or even afford test prep books and tutoring. So when it comes to the term “holistic,” elements such as background, school profiles (a brochure that outlines your school’s course catalog, average scores, graduation rate, etc.), and sometimes ethnicity and socioeconomic status are taken into account.

That said, though, test scores are still the universal way to measure all students against the same scale, which is why you shouldn’t disregard them entirely, because your score projects academic capability in the context of national percentiles. But if you’re starting to worry about test scores ruining your chances of getting into college, take it from me: Don’t sweat it. Because doing what you actually like to do is what will cultivate the true passion that will come out during the admissions process.