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I bought the college guide books and they list SAT & ACT ranges for kids they have admitted. My question is--if my son is within the range for everything (ACT Composite, SAT verbal, SAT total) but one (SAT math) is it a "deal breaker"?

Sorry if this sounds very naive, but it's my first & I'll be more expert as time goes on.

Here are a few thoughts:

- It is helpful that you have son; he has a better chance than a girl does at most colleges if he has any scores on the low end.
- If his ACT is very good, consider not sending in the SAT at all. You have that option, and most schools will accept either.
- If you have time, have him take the SAT again to try to pull up his math score.
- Many of the kids with scores below the midpoint range for the college have some other hook that the college wants (sports, racial minority, etc.). So if your kid does not have a hook, then it is important for him to bring his scores up.
- Geographic diversity can be a hook (to a point, depends on the school). So if you live in North Dakota, you might gain something

Having been through this once (#1 is a soph in college, #2 is in 9th grade), here is some general advice:

- Visit as many campuses as you can. We did 20 (yup, 20!) visits. Most of them at least half a day. Have your kid go to class, go on the tour and to the info session, eat there, and meet with a professor or coach. Then our D went back for admitted student weekends just to be sure. There is no substitute for the campus visit, in my opinion. She hated some schools she expected to love, and loved some she was only lukewarm to on paper.
- One book that we found especially helpful was the Fiske Guide to Colleges. A good mix of statistics and info on what it is really like to go to a school.
- Start early. And I think it is harder to get boys to do this. We started visits fall of Junior year, and did some on every break from school for the next year. Your kid will be less rushed and more comfortable at application time if you do this. Some colleges, especially state universities, have rolling admissions, so an early application is more likely to be admitted (and in some cases get merit aid!). And you are better positioned for Early Action or Early Decision if you have your list of colleges decided on by early fall of senior year.
- Discourage your son from getting too attached to any one school. Admissions are a crap shoot... especially at top schools. Encourage him to apply to a variety of schools. Be realistic about what you can afford, too. Even super bright kids like ours don't pull down merit aid at most top schools. Great if you get good aid, but don't count on it. Apply to some financial safeties, too.
- If you haven't found it yet, the chat threads at www.collegeconfidential.com are great. Addictive, though. Like crack for parents of college bound students...

My older D followed a path similar to this, and ended up making a GREAT choice for her with excellent merit aid. Good luck!

Thank you so much intparent. You offer great advice. I really appreciate it.

I am not sure what the range in the guide book is. Some of them list the middle 50%. So the range is from 25 percentile to 75 percentile. For example, you can get the range for UC Berkeley from college board:

SAT Critical Reading: 590 - 710
SAT Math: 640 - 760
SAT Writing: 610 - 720

If your son is not URM (under represented minorities), athlete, or with the last name Obama. Probably he needs to aim for 75% percentile score. If he achieve 710+760+720 = 2190, he has reasonable confidence that Berkeley will admit him (with reasonable GPA, class ranking, ECs, etc). Actually Berkeley is a bad example, out of state students used be difficult to get in Berkeley. But that started to change as it became more desperate about its financial situation. OOS student pays more in tuition.

I guess my question is, if a school accepts either ACT or SAT, and the ACTs are high and in their 75% range but math SAT isn't, there's no point to retake SAT or submit scores--is there?

That in general is the case. If the ACT score is higher than SAT, then you just send in the ACT score.

Here the thing gets a bit more complicated. If your son is applying private schools, then he may need at least 2 SAT II scores. Even some public schools require SAT II. You can probably submit SAT II scores and suppress the SAT I score that you don't want to send with 'score choice'.

Make sure that you check the university's policy towards SAT 'score choice'. Some of them say 'score choice' is okay, others demand all scores.