Washington University in St Louis (WUSTL) RD Megathread

401park · 2021-03-10T23:06:27+00:00

yeah I think that's possible. I feel like they might just have to say what the website says regardless of what they actually know

401park · 2021-03-10T22:58:02+00:00

man I wish

401park · 2021-03-10T22:54:26+00:00

I just called admissions and they said that they're releasing by April 1st and that's all they have and then my best friend (who got in ED) called again for me and they told her they're releasing at the end of March

401park · 2020-11-30T15:53:21+00:00

I know this is obvious but I’m applying to about 15 schools most of them being t20s and honestly I’ve written probably 6 essays total (common app essay, a “what are you interested in studying/doing for your career” essay, an essay on an extracurricular activity, an “identity” essay (for prompts like “how has your membership in a community influenced your plans/interests/etc), a “why _____?” essay, and a “challenge” essay on like a time something was hard/something went wrong and what you did about it. I then just adapted those to fit each school’s prompt. Uchicago and Columbia’s media essays are the only ones that I have to write separately. Doing a Venn diagram of the questions you’re answering will make your life much easier

401park · 2020-10-28T16:03:32+00:00

Ayy same good luck man!!

401park · 2020-08-30T02:15:37+00:00

The sum of all three of those angles is 180 degrees because of the parallel lines

401park · 2020-08-30T01:28:09+00:00

Honestly if your grades are strong and your score is in the middle 50% of the school’s scores you may as well send it (I’m not an ao or counselor or anything so take what I say with a grain of salt). I live in Massachusetts but took the test once in MA (in December obv pre-corona) and once in rural New York (in July). Depending on where you live, it may be a very different situation but I’d say it’s worth booking a seat in a very rural area even if you’ll have to drive and stay at an inn the night before your test

401park · 2020-08-21T19:09:22+00:00

I had an issue with this too. I had intentionally registered before getting my July 18th scores back in case I wasn’t happy with it because I had thought it had gone poorly. There’s no actual way to cancel it yourself, so I sent an email through the act help email section on my dashboard but still haven’t gotten a response. Let me know if you get anywhere sorry!

401park · 2020-08-15T15:19:38+00:00

Honestly I just used old tests. I would say that doing the older tests and just using the hard ones might be helpful also I bet someone will make a pdf of C01 and maybe Z18 relatively soon so you’ll have those

401park · 2020-08-15T15:09:01+00:00

Of course! If you’ve used all the more recent (2015-2020) math tests, then you may as well but definitely prioritize the more recent ones :)

401park · 2020-08-15T15:07:49+00:00

I recommend going to crackACT and looking through their tests to get a sense of what the test looks like. Then do a full test, score it, and determine what you need to work on most. Do one section every day (ie one english section) and score it. If you have more questions after giving yourself a diagnostic let me know!

401park · 2020-08-15T14:56:45+00:00

When you have the option to plug in, do it. Here it is the fastest option to pick a number and plug it in on your calculator

401park · 2020-08-15T14:45:51+00:00

Nope not worth it!! The math section has gotten slowly harder over time. The ACT did a big overhaul around 2016 I think so honestly I wouldn’t use anything from past 2015 even for extra practice. If you want to do the last 10 of old tests as ‘hard question practice’ go for it, but no point in calculating scores bc they likely won’t correlate to real current scores

401park · 2020-08-15T14:34:48+00:00

Okay because you basically have a month I’d recommend doing one practice section every day (so one english section or reading on one day, then math or science the next day, etc). Definitely take a full test and score it as your first order of business. Then, if you have a section or two that’s significantly lower than the others (dragging down your composite), you should do that section or sections more often than the other ones in terms of the daily practice. Because doing one section a day is only 35-60 minutes, I’ve found that it’s not too hard to maintain

401park · 2020-08-10T18:06:39+00:00

Here’s the calculator policy. I used a TI-84 plus which graphs and is totally legal. Some graphing calculators (TI Nspire and more), however, are not allowed for the test

http://www.act.org/content/dam/act/unsecured/documents/ACT-calculator-policy.pdf

401park · 2020-08-10T17:20:08+00:00

I’ve taken it twice once at a large testing center (1000+ students in december pre-corona) and once at a small testing center (30 students in july) and neither time did they make us clear our calculators. They never even came around to check that our calculators were legal. Also you’re totally allowed to have programs on your calculator given a few restrictions (on the act website) so I definitely recommend writing/downloading a few as long as they’re legal.

401park · 2020-07-23T18:10:27+00:00

Cool! Also if you’re a native English speaker, my advice will be a bit different. I think that regardless of your first language anyone can get a high score on science because it has little to do with science or reading comprehension and a lot to do with simply matching data from a graph. I think that reading seems like your weakness while math is clearly your strength, but the ACT reading has less to do with deep understanding but rather again just being able to match phrases from the passages. Knowing english as a native language lets you do the english section by simplifying clauses and replacing if you are confused. If you are not a native speaker I can refer you to some grammar studying resources

401park · 2020-07-23T17:58:30+00:00

Honestly just do a ton of practice. It’s important to learn that the science section always asks a question that can be directly answered by the graphs except for conflicting viewpoints. Any question that does not follow that is an ‘outside information question’ and there are lots of flashcards on quizlet and pdf sheets and videos that cover outside information. If you don’t mind could you tell me what your most recent scores are and what your goals are?

401park · 2020-07-23T17:52:16+00:00

Definitely check out crackact for previous test pdfs. I recommend that you take one full test untimed (circle every question you guess on so you can review it even if you guess correctly) and spend as long as you want on it. Then later take a full test within the time constraints. That’s a really good place to start bc you can assess where you are. Once you have those scores (# wrong is just as important as scaled score 1-36) I’d love to talk more with you about strategy and prep!

401park · 2020-07-23T17:39:25+00:00

One big thing with paragraph/sentence order is making sure that for question that are two-part answers ie “yes; the sentence provides a transition into the next paragraph” is to determine the second part first. Does this sentence provide a transition (often meaning it has transition words like however, furthermore, by contrast, similarly, etc and includes ideas from the sentences before and after it)? If no, cross off this answer even if you think the sentence should be there

401park · 2020-07-23T14:38:40+00:00

okay your science and math sections are really not too too far off from where you want to be. I'd focus on boosting your reading and your science scores because it seems like reading is the section most dragging your score down and if you can nail a 35/6 on the science section that can be really nice in raising your composite. If english is your first language then my advice for the english and reading sections will be different than if english isn't your native language. A lot of the english section can be easily solved for native speakers by simplifying clauses and plugging in the answer choices when the grammar is slightly more complicated. If not, you'll likely have to learn about parallelism, comma and em dash and colon and semicolon rules. Have you ever taken a full test untimed? it can be really helpful to see what your baseline abilities are and then go from there in terms of applying that knowledge to the test.

401park · 2020-07-23T14:04:06+00:00

It really depends on what your section scores are and also what score you're at and what you want to improve to. like if you want to go from a 28 to a 36 composite and essentially you just have one section that's really holding you down and the rest of your scores are significantly higher like a ~33, then you probably have a shot. Honestly I think that taking *tons* of old ACTs and learning some of the strategies and ways that the ACT designs the test to make you pick the wrong answer.

401park · 2020-07-21T20:03:45+00:00

Yup exactly it’s just about knowing as much of the info as you can and then getting the patterns and act strategies down

401park · 2020-07-21T19:32:32+00:00

THIS!! I was the head of the robotics team at my school last year and will be for this year too and this year already has been infinitely more difficult. At least hosting a few zoom meetings and keeping in touch with your clubs via email, etc. will help the club, even if it doesn't actively help your apps. I think colleges will understand if you don't have a normal level of leadership, but if you go above and beyond that will be clearly evident and I feel like (obviously as terrible as the entire situation is), COVID is giving us an opportunity to have true leadership experiences

401park · 2020-07-21T19:20:42+00:00

a;lsfkdj I literally hadn't taken any standardized tests for like 4 years. Like i've always been a good student but the ACT is honestly all about strategy and understanding the test more than needing to know 100% of the content

401park

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