ACT Tutoring and Test Prep

Confidence in the testing room goes a long way in improving your score.

When you are trying to juggle all of your school and extracurricular commitments, you might be tempted to postpone preparing for your ACT or simply rely on your memory of subjects taught in school and test-taking abilities. This is not a good idea. The ACT is only offered six times a year, and many students do not achieve the scores they are satisfied with on their first try. You may want the chance to try again and put your best effort into it.

You might also think the ACT is just like the SAT, so studying for one will prepare you for both. But the subject matter, pace of the test and scoring is different, and studying and adequately preparing for the test is critical. Most top U.S. colleges and universities require standardized test scores as part of your application. If you take the ACT, schools look at your composite score and then how you did on each section (English, Math, Reading and Science). Many highly selective schools also look at the essay portion of the test, which is sometimes called “optional.” If you are properly prepared when you take the ACT, you can significantly improve your chances of being admitted to highly competitive universities.

ACT Prep with the Going Ivy Difference

The team at Going Ivy is made up of educational experts who have graduated from the top schools in the nation. We understand the ACT and SAT and have earned top scores on both tests. We are equipped to help you through one-on-one tutoring to prepare you for taking the ACT. We will start by assessing your strengths and your needs and then devise a tailored approach to boosting your score. There is no formula or rulebook we follow—the tutoring is completely unique to your needs. While we have helped students to get into highly selective colleges, including the Ivy League, we also work with students of all academic backgrounds in an effort to help them to gain entry into their chosen schools, including state universities.

Going Ivy for ACT Test Prep

The experienced tutors and counselors at Going Ivy understand the strategies that work when you take the ACT test. We can assess where you are currently and work together with you to devise the best approach to your ACT test. We work with students of all academic backgrounds. Whether you are already a top student at your school or someone who has procrastinated a bit and are now wanting to catch up so that you can get into college, we can design a program that will work best for your individual background, needs and goals. Contact Going Ivy today to get started on your tailored program, and you’ll be on the road to scoring the highest that you can on your college admissions tests.

Why ACT Test Prep Works

You may have heard hype that some admissions officers at highly competitive schools say that test scores are not that important. Joie Jager-Hyman, a former admissions counselor at Dartmouth, cautions that you should not believe it. The most selective schools schools receive thousands of applications every year and admit a very small percentage of students. When an admissions officer is trying to choose applicants, they are likelier to choose students who have the best scores because that’s a good indicator that they will do well in college. A good starting point for your preparation is to look at the average scores of the admitted students at your top-choice school. This can give you a target score to set as your goal.

With your target score in mind, you should take a practice ACT. It is important for you to take this test as early in your high school career as possible, preferably in your freshman or sophomore year. It will give you a good idea of the areas in which you need to work. At Going Ivy, we can assess your practice performance and design a tailored approach for your test preparation. It is also a good idea to take the pre-SAT test. You can then look at the score gap for both tests and choose the one that you are closer to reaching.

A perfect ACT test score is 36. The average score range for admitted students at Harvard on the ACT is 32 to 35, and 90 percent of enrolled freshmen have scores of 30 to 36. This shows the importance of trying to get the best score possible if you dream of getting into a highly selective school. Even increasing your score by a couple of points might make the difference between receiving a rejection letter or being accepted. Going Ivy can help you to gauge your progress during your ACT preparation. We do this by monitoring you and figuring out what score you might realistically expect based on your past performance and your improvement over time. Of course, a few months of ACT prep is nice to have to see significant changes, but even one month of targeted help can make a meaningful difference.

Another benefit of the one-on-one ACT prep that Going Ivy provides is to look at your score in connection with building a good list of colleges, containing your target schools, ones that are within your reach and ones at which you are likely to be admitted.

Good test preparation can teach you both content areas in which you need improvement as well as the test-taking strategies that are most likely to help you on the test. Confidence in the testing room goes a long way in improving your score, and Going Ivy does not ignore that component of the ACT. When you work together with an experienced tutor, you can learn ways to maximize your performance under time pressures. We’ll keep you motivated and help with persistence and endurance to see improvements in your score.

Contact Going Ivy today to get started with focused ACT prep.