Christiana C.: Enrolled a Week Before the ACT, Went From a 25 to a 29

Christiana is a senior from New York and the first person in her family to apply to college. She wants to study architecture, and her first choice is the University of Tennessee, Knoxville, where she’s applying from out of state, Early Action, by November 1. To reach UT’s honors programs and the scholarships that come with them, she was aiming for a 30 or 31.

She was at a 25. That was her superscore, the average of her best section scores across two ACTs: English 22, Math 27 and Reading 26. Before that she’d taken a full SAT course and several SATs, but done almost no prep for the ACT itself.

She enrolled with us on September 12. The September ACT was seven days away.

What fit into one week

The next morning she took our diagnostic, a full-length practice ACT every student starts with. It confirmed that English was her weakest section, with Math close behind and Reading her strongest. Her English mistakes had a pattern: she’d often pick the right answer, second-guess it and change it.

On Wednesday she had her first planning meeting with her coach, Bailey. With three days left, Bailey kept the week light on purpose. Christiana spent Wednesday and Thursday on short grammar videos, and Friday resting. She had no practice tests that week, so she’d walk into the test fresh.

The result

Christiana scored a 29, with English 26, Math 28 and Reading 32. Her English went up four points, her Reading went up six, and her Math went up one. The 29 is her new superscore.

Four points can sound modest next to some of the jumps in our results. But a 29 moves her from roughly the top 20% of test takers to the top 7%.

Since September she and Bailey have worked through English, then Reading, and now Math, ahead of the October test and the point or two still between her and a 30 or 31.