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4 years ago
Admissions Advice

Is a 35 on the act good even if I got a 32 as one subscore

So I'm an Asian male applying for biology to top schools. I got my act score back today and found that I got a 35 composite, which I was happy about. However, my reading section subscore was a 32, which I'm a little concerned about, since it's kinda low for many competitive schools. Should I be worried about having a low subscore in one section if my conposite is good, and would this make my composite score less impressive? I feel that it just looks wierd seeing that I'm substantially weaker at reading than the other parts of the test. So do you think it's worth taking again?

ACT
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@DebaterMAX4 years ago

If you going into English/Humanties potentially. Going into STEM much much less likely

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4
4 years ago

Your other subscores which are either 36,35,35 or 36,36,35 look much better than the 32 which is a 91% percentile score.

And you didn't mention whether you took the Essay section either.

My 2 cents is that since you are an Asian male, you are in the 2nd worst demographic besides Asian females and that there will many peers submitting 35s and 36s that are more equally weighted. I would retake it with the aim to get a 34 - 96% percentile.

Also consider taking the essay if it is available because by getting a good essay score like a 10-11, that will give you a good ELA score, like 34 or so which will show that you are a good writer.

http://www.act.org/content/act/en/products-and-services/the-act/scores/writing-test-scores.html

You don't mention which schools you are applying to but I imagine its a mix of IVYs, T20 elite colleges, and some Top Public research universities, so basically the same schools that high achieving male Asians STEM majors apply to.

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