How Much Prep, Is Enough?

As Arrowhead’s junior class begins thinking about post-high school education, the ACT assessment is prominent in the minds of many.

According to the Washington Post, the ACT is the most widely accepted college entrance exam in the United States. So of course, as seniors receive their college acceptance letters, the junior class begins the year-long panic over what to do to be successful after high school.

Arrowhead has providing post high school academic and career planning. Within the first month of school, juniors were required to participate in a Career Cruising online activity for about an hour.

On top of this, junior conferences are scheduled between a junior, one or more of that junior’s parents, and the junior’s assigned counselor. According to the Arrowhead website, the goal of these meetings is to make a plan on what you want to do out of high school, and what you need to do in order to be ready to take on the next step of education out of high school.

A prominently discussed topic at home, and at school is the ACT test. Students panic about the dreaded ACT, because the idea that the ACT test is one of the leading factors that determines our acceptance into universities has been drilled into our minds since we were in middle school.

Some remaining ACT test dates include February 11, 2017, April 8, 2017, and June 10, 2017.

Of the 1,845,787 students who took the ACT in 2014, only 1,407 students achieved a perfect composite score of 36. According to data collected by Wikipedia, highly selective colleges look for scores ranging from 27-30; selective colleges look for scores ranging from 25-27; traditional colleges look for scores ranging from 22-24; liberal colleges commonly accept scores ranging from 18-21; and open colleges can be found to accept scores from 17-20.

Despite the uproar caused by the stress of the ACT, students should know that the ACT is just one of many factors that lead up to college acceptance.

Sami Heikkinen is a junior at Kettle Moraine high school, who is scheduled to take the ACT on December 10.

“I have been putting off studying for so long, but stressing out about this test at the same time. It seemed so far away and now it’s already here. I just hope that what I’ve done is enough to get a good score.”

Colleges are interested in the ACT score that a student receives, however, colleges are also interested in course rigor, raw GPA, extracurricular, and any other unique attributes a student may have to offer.