You may find that schools that you’d barely considered before end up being top in the country in particular areas. How can you check? First, it’s often helpful to consult the graduate rankings in a publication like US News and World Report; although, keep in mind that sometimes graduate programs and faculty are separate from the undergraduate, and are sometimes shared. Once you have that list, comb the web sites, course guides and published information from colleges to see if they are strong in your area(s) of interest. Finally, call the school or visit and speak to professors, visit the library, check out the holdings — in short, make an informed decision about where you are applying and why.

Also, bear in mind that if you state a reason for applying to a school, it should be an academic reason.  Unless a particular school has an extracurricular program that is truly unique (and, ideally, ties in to an academic interest), the school is going to care far more about what you want to study than about the backpacking trips you want to lead and the underprivileged children you want to tutor.  Those are all great things, but clubs, community service programs, and intramural sports are available at almost every college these days.

Some schools, however, will accept the ACT in lieu of SAT Subject Tests.

We think that taking the ACT benefits the majority of applicants. Since the colleges will take your highest scores on either the SAT I or the ACT, you can let them choose your best score. Also, it can offset a weaker writing SAT I score if you take the writing section of the ACT. Since the ACT is a bit less aptitude-oriented, some students do better on it than on the SAT I. Plus, it’s shorter than the SAT I so those who have trouble concentrating for four hours have an alternative. Science students tend to like the ACT as it has a science section.

There are two noticeable advantages to the ACT: 1) they have complete score choice so you can take the test ten times and report one score, no scores, two scores, etc… to colleges. The SAT I has recently changed their scoring policies to remain competitive with the ACT and after 2009 they too will go back to scores choice. 2)There is no guessing penalty, which means you can fill in every answer instead of figuring out which ones to leave blank.

Some colleges (you have to check each one individually) will accept the ACT in lieu of SAT Subject tests, so that is often a convenient option. In short, you have little to lose, but could have a lot to gain by taking the ACT.

To sign up visit: http://www.actstudent.org/regist/dates.html