1540 vs more than 1540?

[Data10]

that doesn’t say anything about how he, or admissions reps at other schools, differentiate between two non-medalists, one with a 740 and one with an 800.

He said that “there is really not a difference in our process between someone who scores, say, a 740 on the SAT math, and someone who scores an 800 on the SAT math”, implying that he would differentiate between the two non-medalists by looking at other parts of the application besides math SAT score. Of course he does not speak for all colleges. Some colleges do handles scores differently, as I mentioned in my earlier reply.

The point is that the admit rate by test score numbers do not control for the other portions of the application, and many parts of these uncontrolled parts of the application are notably correlated with test scores. So even if a college didn’t consider test scores as part of their application process, the admit rate would still notably increase as test scores went up, and looking at admit rate by test score tells you little about how much the college treats small differences in test scores in the application process unless there are more extreme differences in admit rate for those test scores. An example of more extreme differences in admit rate would be admit the vast majority with high 1500s and reject the vast majority with low 1500s. Vanderbilt ACT shows this type of relationship. Brown’s admit 16% 800 M SAT and 14% 750-790 M SAT does not.

[anon94785555]

Please do not obsess about this. It is the whole package, not just test scores that makes the difference when there are too many well qualified students for the spots available. Even then admissions people need to make choices. It will not be the end of the world to get into another top tier school. Remember to let your child have his/her childhood as well as doing well academically. Enjoying this last year of HS instead of spending time trying to optimize a resume by a slight margin… Besides, you don’t know that a retake will yield a higher score- it could go down.

[SwimmingDad]

Really depends on your HS. Go look at Naviance and see what the kids scored who were accepted into your target schools. Oddly, for my kids HS if you want Penn or Columbia I would say definitely hit 1550. For Harvard/Yale/Stanford…doesn’t matter. Some schools are clearly going for scores…others you just need to be above a certain threshold. Personally I think these distinctions are stupid. Think of a 34 vs. a 35 ACT. That literally could be the difference of 1-2 questions.

[thumper1]

@AbsDad

Do you really want your kid to take the SAT again in the hopes of getting 60 additional points and a perfect score? Is that what you want?

So…what will you do if the score doesn’t change…or goes down?

Please concentrate on the rest of this kids application materials. The SAT score is fine.

[warblersrule]

@AbsDad

Is there a tangible benefit to having more than 1540 SAT?

For admissions, probably not. For merit scholarships at the most selective colleges…possibly. Winners of the big merit scholarships (e.g. the AB Duke at Duke) tend to be outstanding in many areas, however, not just test scores.

@tdy123

As to whether >1540 improves chances over 1540, there is data available that indicates that it probably does… For HYPMS admissions data from Naviance scattergrams at my son’s HS, going from the low 1500’s to high 1500s tripled the acceptance rate.

Higher test scores correlating with higher admit rates has been a trend at top schools for years. The Revealed Preferences study, for example, touched upon the relationship between test scores and acceptance rates back in 2004.

@A REVEALED PREFERENCE RANKING OF U.S. COLLEGES AND UNIVERSITIES

Another method by which a college can manipulate its matriculation rate is deliberately not admitting students who are likely to be admitted by close competitors or colleges that are often more highly preferred. A college administrator may say to himself, “My college will ultimately fail to attract good applicants unless I raise its matriculation rate. I can achieve this with a strategic policy that denies admission to students who seem likely to be accepted by colleges more desirable than mine. By systemically denying them admission, my college will of course lose of its some most desirable students (because some percentage of the highly desirable students would have matriculated). However, it is worthwhile to sacrifice the actual desirability of my college class in order to appear more desirable on a flawed indicator.” To make this strategy concrete, suppose that Princeton wanted to raise its matriculation rate. It could decide to admit only students who were very likely to fall just short of the admissions thresholds for Harvard, Yale, Stanford, MIT, and other close competitors. The students admitted would thus have no colleges in their “menus” that were close competitors to Princeton, and they would be likely to matriculate. Students who attend Princeton would almost certainly prefer that the university not pursue such a policy because it would reduce the peer quality of their fellow students. Yet, by the standard of the matriculation rate, Princeton’s measured appeal would rise just as its actual appeal fell…

…Examine MIT admissions in Figure 1. The probability of a student’s being admitted rises steeply and monotonically in his or her combined SAT score, suggesting that MIT is not engaging in strategic admissions. Now examine Harvard admissions in Figure 1. The line has a flat region that suggests that the probability of a student’s being admitted is about 10 percent regardless of where his SAT scores in the range between the 93rd and the 98th percentiles. Above the 98th percentile, a student’s probability of admissions rises steeply. Finally, consider Princeton admissions in Figure 1. At Princeton, the admissions probability rises to 20 percent at the 93 percentile, then falls to 10 percent at the 98 percentile (precisely the region where competition is toughest), and then rises again for students with SAT scores in the top 2 percentiles. In short, it appears that Princeton practices more strategic admissions than MIT or Harvard. When we see the revealed preference ranking later in the paper, we will see that Figure 1 makes sense because Harvard and MIT could benefit less from strategic admissions than Princeton could.

[CValle]

Go check out the UPITT scholarship thread. Every 10 extra points on the SAT seems to (in many, many cases) to correlate to an extra 5,000 in the merit scholarship.

So, if you are chasing merit money…it may make a big difference.

[glido]

I have to agree with @compmom and @twogirls . . . No. best of luck!

[collegedad13]

I agree with most of the other posters. No. To do any more is a waste of time.