Career Plans
Most high school students have no idea about what their career interests are. Does any 17 year old really know what to do with his or her life? But there are a number of ways of handling this application question including: a) Indicate “Undecided,” but say that you are looking forward to attending college as a way of exploring your options and coming up with an answer; b) Offer two or three alternatives that you have been thinking about, e.g., a career that matches your academic strengths and/or extracurricular activities.

7. TEST INFORMATION (SAT, ACT, SUBJECT TESTS, ADVANCED PLACEMENT {AP} AND INTERNATIONAL BACCALAUREATE {IB}
What colleges want in standardized test information varies. Individual college admissions websites provide information about what their respective requirements are.

The Common Application website also provides information about test requirements for its 400 colleges on its Requirements Grid available at this Download Forms link: www.commonapp.org/CommonApp/DownloadForms.aspx

SAT and ACT

• Over 815 four-year colleges and universities do not require their applicants to submit SAT I or ACT scores. You can find out what these schools are at:
www.fairtest.org/university/optional

• Of the colleges that do require test scores, all accept equally the SAT and the ACT.

• Some colleges ask for your best individual SAT scores: Critical Reading, Math and Writing, no matter when you took the tests; others want to you submit the best scores from one test date.

Subject Tests

• A few colleges require three Subjects Tests, some require two, and many do not require any. To determine what individual colleges require, go to this link: www.test-prep.ivywest.com/sat-subject-test-score.aspx

• Colleges will not accept photocopies of College Board or ACT test reports. Many colleges will not even accept the test scores noted on high school transcripts. Therefore, you must contact the College Board directly and ask them to send a copy of your test report that includes SAT I and Subject Tests to every college to which you are applying. Likewise, you must also ask the ACT organization to send a copy of your test report to every college to which you are applying.

AP and IB Tests

Some colleges and now the Common Application ask for a listing of your AP and IB courses, test dates, subjects and scores.