I sat nervously on the edge of my chair and waited as my guidance counselor opened the long white envelope that held my ACT score. My heart sank as she shook her head. "Wow," she said. "I was really expecting a higher score."

It was fall of my senior year—time to send in college applications—and I was a straight-A student with lousy ACT scores. I really wanted to go to Calvin College in Grand Rapids, Michigan, but I was sure my score was too low. They would never accept me.

I took the ACT two more times, but I only got a 20 the second and third times—even lower than my first score! I couldn't believe it. I'd prayed, relaxed, focused, even studied my old class notes. But now, things were worse.

I even started having a goofy nightmare: I was taking the ACT, and the bubbles morphed into huge monsters with the letter A, B, C or D tattooed on their foreheads. They'd jump up and down, screaming "Pick me! Pick me!" I never knew which answer was right, and I'd wake up in a cold sweat.

Finally, in October, I realized time was running out. My counselor urged me to send my application to Calvin. "You're a good student with good grades," she assured me. "Maybe they will consider that in their decision."

I wasn't so sure. I was positive Calvin's admissions board would take one look at my ACT score and automatically reject my application.

Want to know the truth? Calvin didn't automatically reject me. In fact, they considered several other factors—and those factors helped them decide I was right for the school, even though my test scores weren't the greatest. I'll never forget how good it felt to open that acceptance letter!

When it comes to misunderstandings about the value of test scores, I know I wasn't alone. So many high school students struggle with low SAT or ACT scores. And if they don't struggle, they may suffer from another misconception: If I have a great test score, I will definitely get in to whatever college I apply to. But that's not necessarily true, either.

To help take some of the confusion out of this issue, I decided to talk to Dale Kuiper, director of admissions at Calvin—the guy who helped me during my application process.

When I talked with Dale recently, he explained that my solid grades in high school played an important part in Calvin's decision to accept me. It's something all students who struggle with standardized test scores need to remember.

"When the test score is out of whack with the GPA, we try to look more closely at the grades and the classes the student has taken," Dale says. "If the grades are pretty high, then we realize that maybe the student just doesn't do well on standardized tests."

Dale also explained that the difficulty of the classes I took over my four years of high school helped my application, too. Right before my freshman year, my guidance counselor helped me map out classes that would prepare me for college. Even though college seemed like a lifetime away—and I would rather have taken classes like bowling and swimming—I took her advice and signed up for college-prep classes.

My good grades wouldn't have carried as much weight if I had gotten them in classes like home-ec and basic math. I scored major points because the A's I'd earned were in classes like AP English, AP history and advanced biology. All of my tough classes proved I was capable of doing college-level work.

Dale explained that admissions counselors compare grades and test scores to help them decide if a student is likely to succeed academically at Calvin. If my GPA had been below a 2.5, the admissions committee would have thought my ACT score was a pretty good indicator of how I'd perform in college. A combination of mediocre grades and a low ACT score would have really made my application much weaker.

Interestingly, having lower grades and a higher test score—for example, a 31 on the ACT and a GPA below 2.5—would likely have hurt my application, too. It would have told the admissions committee that I was very intelligent, but probably not working hard enough in my classes to live up to my potential.

Dale told me I also had something else going for me: a strong teacher recommendation. And to think that I almost avoided getting one from my favorite teacher!

I'd taken a ton of classes from her and always gotten A's. I thought she'd probably give me a good recommendation, but I was hesitant to tell her about my low test scores. I was so worried that she'd be really disappointed with me—maybe she'd even decline my request.

But I had to get a teacher's recommendation to finish my application. So one day, after rehearsing exactly how I'd break the news to her, I swallowed my pride, walked into my English teacher's classroom, and just blurted out my score. She made me feel a little bit better. She told me I wasn't the first student to have problems taking the ACT, and I certainly wouldn't be the last. She also was really happy to write my recommendation and assured me she'd explain that I simply didn't test well. She was positive my class performance would carry a ton of weight in the admissions decision. She was right.

"We want the recommendation to speak about how a student can do on an academic level," Dale says. "If we have a recommendation from a teacher that tells us the ACT doesn't represent how well a student does in class, that really helps us interpret the student's test score."

The extracurricular activities I was involved with in high school were more than just ways to spend my free time after school. Dale explained they were another factor that helped my application move from the "maybe" pile to the "yes" pile.

Admissions counselors are really interested in your extracurricular activities, because they show that you have interests outside of the classroom. They are opportunities to learn leadership and teamwork skills, too.

When I wrote about my extracurricular activities, I wasn't shy about talking about the hours I'd spent writing for the yearbook, the lessons I'd learned running hurdles on the track team, or the leadership I'd shown by becoming the drum major for our school's marching band. In my essay, I explained how these extracurricular activities made me a stronger student and a well-rounded person.

Dale explained that admissions counselors are really interested in your extracurricular activities, because they offer a glimpse of you beyond numbers like class rank, test scores or GPA. And in my case, that helped a lot.

After I said a little prayer and sent my application to Calvin, it didn't disappear into the deep, dark abyss of some random admission counselor's office. The admissions counselors reviewed it very carefully, measuring weaknesses like my ACT score against strengths like my grades, extracurricular activities and teacher recommendation.

"We try to balance the different parts of an application," Dale says. "If a student has one particular weak area, we try to look at it in the context of the whole application."

The admissions staff at Calvin receives more than 2,000 applications a year and can make a decision about most of them. But there are some applications, like mine, that aren't exactly clear one way or another. An academic committee reviews these applications and offers a second opinion. This special committee examined my grades, teacher recommendations and extracurricular activities. They decided my ACT score absolutely did not represent my academic abilities. Even though they were low, the rest of my application demonstrated that I was a good fit for Calvin.

After I was accepted at Calvin, it didn't take me long to forget about my low ACT score. The nightmares stopped and the number that had caused me so much anxiety didn't really matter any more.

My experience during my college application process taught me that admissions counselors are looking for well-rounded students who have proven their abilities in several ways. So if a student's test scores are weak, there are other strengths they can demonstrate—in areas they can control, like grades, extracurricular activities and teacher recommendations. So if you're like me, don't despair. As I discovered, a low test score doesn't always mean giving up on the school of your dreams.

Copyright © 2003 by the author or Christianity Today International/Campus Life magazine.
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