What is super scoring? When a college takes the highest score from each subsection over multiple ACT or SAT tests and builds out a new overall ACT or SAT score that is made up of ONLY the student's highest subsection scores.
For example, for the ACT test, a student may have scored:
ACT Feb 2016: 25 26 28 24 (26),
ACT June 2016: 28 30 30 22 (27),
ACT Sep 2016: 29 28 27 26 (27),
New score via ACT Super Scoring: 29 30 30 26 (29)
Likewise for the SAT.
Super scoring is fantastic if the college your student is applying to does it. However, each college has its own rules for super scoring the ACT and SAT. Some schools require ALL the test scores from either the ACT and SAT. Other colleges will super score between multiple tests of the same type. I highly recommend that you check the college websites and find out what their test score policy is.
What this means for students: Take the tests multiple times! Because so many colleges now super score the ACT and SAT, its worth it to take the test at least twice.