Anyone who professes to know exactly how a specific college makes its admissions decisions is flat-out wrong. In the history of college applications, you don’t think that a 1600 scorer has ever gotten in ahead of a 1550 scorer, with all else being equal? Then you’re drinking the kool-aid that the colleges are selling you.
ivysource, your assumptions are incorrect. After reaching a criteria, a little higher makes no difference for most schools.
Ivysource, As others have noted, everything else is never “equal” because even in the instance of identical twins, there are differences across applicants. Further, time spent on one thing is taken from time spent on something else. So a student who puts in effort to improve scores is taking that time from someplace else.
But a bigger difficulty is one that you seem to have with logic, related to this “In the history of applications, you don’t think that a 1600 scorer has ever gotten in ahead of a 1550 scorer…” That really isn’t the point. Yes a 1600 scorer has gotten in while a 1500 scorer was rejected. But Yes a 1500 scorer has gotten in while a 1600 scorer has been rejected.
Ivysource, it would probably be helpful for you to read about concepts like predictive and incremental validity. I would also recommend becoming more familiar with psychometrics as they pertain to college admissions. This is an area that is often neglected by may help clarify these issues.
@lostaccount I understand that it must be comforting to think that you’ve got it all figured out. But unfortunately, test scores matter.
At the end of the day, a 1550 is a fantastic score and good enough for most colleges. But a 1550 also isn’t what it used to be–it corresponds to a 1520 on the old 1600-point test and a 2280 on the old 2400-point test: https://collegereadiness.collegeboard.org/educators/higher-ed/scoring-changes/concordance
A lot of people on this forum define “misinformation” as “the opposite of what they (incorrectly) believe.” Consider your sources. Many CC users who post here are HS students or parents of HS students with a very subjective take on the issue.
Remember that most of you are competing for the same spots at the same top schools. Of course the student who scored 1450, or the parent of a student who scored 1500, is going to tell you that you are done with the SAT. They don’t need any more competition from an applicant like you. But an informed third party has no reason not to be honest.
@ivysource On the other side of that are those who profit from standardized testing, who have a clear interest in generating/maintaining angst. That said, I don’t disagree with you.
@bucketdad You are right on that one. As is usually the case, the truth lies somewhere in the middle of the two extremes.
A 1600 is undoubtedly better than a 1550, but ,tbh, I would not waste my time. I’d rather be hanging out with friends then studying for 50 more points on the sat. However, don’t feel pressured by the CC folks if you really want to take it again, there is really nothing wrong if you are willing to put in the time for it. I would say if you don’t get it on your next take, drop it and look for other ways to improve your chances ( it will probably by a more efficient use of your time then studying for the SAT.) For example, look at the essay prompts, Common ap prompt, brainstorm, consider who will write you the most successful recommendations, consider what colleges really want out of teacher recs ( mit has a whole page on this, check it out, it’s quite good), consider looking at successful college admissions essays ( through what mediums did communicate their points/passions ), consider the interview, prepare for it, look at successful applications ( the co-founder of prepscholar has a full successful harvard application available for free, the info is useful http://blog.prepscholar.com/successful-harvard-application-common-application-harvard-supplement ). Plenty of ways to improve your chances, it seems that’s what you want to do.
Good luck.
Not worth it, 1550 is fine for top schools. Retaking might actually hurt your chances