<p>the dean of admissions of Yale ( i think for international students) comes to my school every year( its not in the US). When i was applying for freshman admissions what he said was that after a certain number we dont really care about ur sat score. You can get a 2400 but that wont make a difference between u and somebody who has a signifigantly lower score. </p>
<p>i see a hell lot of ppl getting rejected with perfect sat’s and alot of ppl getting accepted with great but not perfect sats. Id say retake ONLY if uve got everything else (essays, recs, etc) covered</p>
Odds are, if OP doesn’t have everything else “covered,” he shouldn’t be looking at Dartmouth. Plus, as I said before, this is merely a way for the dean to increase applications and, thus, lower the acceptance rate. Lots of kids with perfect scores get rejected. Lots of kids with 2200s SATs get accepted. But guess what? Those 2400s have a much higher overall admissions rate.</p>
<p>I think this is because, on average, the people who get 2400s on the SATs fall into one of two categories. Either they are just naturally really smart and got a 2400 on their first try, or they got a 2100 (or so) and then studied like crazy until they got a 2400 (after possibly multiple retests).
People who fall into the first category probably have great grades to back up the 2400, and likely also have some other sort of academic awards. So they’re accepted for the whole package, not just the 2400.
People who fall into the second category are probably very hard working and dedicated to going to a top college (to study so hard just to bring up an already very good score). Thus they probably devote the same effort to their high school grades and have spectacular GPAs, and also devote time to ECs to make sure to get into that top school. So they, too, have the full package and not just the 2400.
On the other hand, you can also divide those who get ~2100 into two rough categories: those who studied hard (or didn’t), got the 2100, realized it was a great score, and then decided to spend their time doing more worthwhile things than retaking the test. If they also have great GPAs and ECs, they’ll get into top schools.
There’s also the group who studied hard, got a 2100, and said “wow, that’s more than I thought I’d get. Great!” and then continued to waste their time on other unproductive things. If they don’t also have great GPAs and ECs, they wont be accepted, even if they do have the 2100 (which I believe is a great score).</p>
<p>tl;dr - Correlation doesn’t always imply causation. Just something to think about.</p>
<p>If the difference between 750 scores per section and 800 score per section were irrelevant, why would Brown take the time to mention the acceptance rates of those with an 800 on a section vs. those with a 750-790 on a section?</p>
<p>Lots of things in the college admissions process are not conclusive enough that they are often put into question by the good ole “correlation not causation” mantra. “URMs aren’t getting in because they’re black, it’s because they are culturally diverse.” “Legacies aren’t subjected to an advantage; they have a higher average SAT score despite a higher acceptance rate!” Clearly, though, all of these are factors, and standing far and above the two examples I have used is the SAT score, probably the second biggest factor in college admissions (next to the transcript).</p>
<p>
Neither of those groups is likely to get into a top college without some sort of push, depending on your definition of a top college. If you’re speaking top 25, then I suppose the first candidate stands a chance, but when we’re speaking schools with acceptance rates near the single-digits that first candidate is going to have to spend that EC time doing some very special things.</p>
<p>Wow - reading this thread made me realize what top level schools (MIT, Yale, Stanford) are looking for. </p>
<p>Creativity. Drive. Curiosity. Passion. Social awareness. And 2200+ on the SAT…
…NOT!
Once you’re past 2100 threshold it makes no, none, zip, “0” difference. </p>
<p>Try to take 10,000 foot view of things. That’s what the best schools are really looking for!</p>
<p>Where did the rest of the admits taking the SAT fall? The figures are screwy; two sections of the admits add up to 80%, and one up to 75% for the SAT sections.</p>
<p>I would suggest that once you are past the mean of the college (which is about 2200 for Dartmouth and Brown), it makes little difference, but it’s not zero. I think it was Michelle Hernandez who wrote in her book: adcoms are aware of the impact that test scores have USNews ranking and thus, it’s always better to be at or above the mean. Otherwise, an adcom would have to find something else significantly better on the app to accept you and lower their reported mean.</p>
I think I’ll stop trying to counter ignoramuses like yourself because it means that there are that many fewer people I’ll have to seriously compete with for HYPSM (actually it’s irrelevant; I’m not applying the normal way). But for good measure, I’ll say it one more time and leave it at that, and maybe, just maybe, a few of you will get off the idealistic myth that anything 2100+ is the same.</p>
<p>No one’s disputing that a 2100 can’t get into top schools. But the info is out there on numerous college websites. The adcoms (and not the ones at college fairs; they’re trying to increase application numbers and hence decrease admission rate) are even acknowledging the importance of a few dozen SAT points, even at the highest ranges. Colleges like Harvard only distinguish on ECs when difference of SAT scores between applicants; think ~60 points. They cannot rely on extremely skewed sources of evaluation over concrete information; this is not a secret, this is common sense. The kids getting in to HYPSM with a 2100-ish SAT score are: URMs, recruited athletes, legacies (probably the more deeply rooted ones), developmental admits, or have such overwhelmingly strong ECs (think head of a major, renown organization) that their relatively weak scores were permissible. And please, oh please, save the anecdotes to yourself; every rule has exceptions. Given the tens of thousands that apply to HYPSM each year, even hundreds of exceptions would only account for, at most, a 1% exception to an obvious trend.</p>
<p>And please, don’t get me wrong, OP. A 2130 is a superb score. For most of your schools, a 2130 will more than suffice. Even schools like Dartmouth have slightly lower thresholds and accommodate more “exceptions” to the SAT trend than HYPSM. But if you really are aiming for Dartmouth and if it’s your top choice, I would highly recommend a retake.</p>
<p>monstor344, I am sorry I upset you. I am assume you are both smart and might beheaded for a good school. </p>
<p>However, you may have overlooked one of the most important factors that top-level universities look for… CHARACTER. I’m sure you are know what “holistic” admissions means. Lots of schools - Yale, MIT, Stanford, Harvard - make a big point of trying to find students who bring special things to their campus. Calling people names is not one of them… even if you scored 2400 on your SAT.</p>
It is undeniable that personal characteristics are huge for top universities. But grades and test scores will always, far and away, be the most important factor. And at the same time, they are more than qualifiers; I like to think of the SAT as analogous to the AMC math competition: if you do well enough, you’ll qualify for the AIME (or in the SAT’s case, the next round of admissions), but odds are you’re not making the USAMO (or, in the SAT’s case, an acceptance letter), with a 100 AMC 12 score unless you do phenomenally well in the next round of the competition (or, in college admission’s case, the personal characteristics. But in college admissions, these characteristics have to be overwhelmingly strong to override the weaker SAT/GPA).</p>
That’s not true at all. How did you manage to reach that conclusion based on what I said? Clearly certain achievements can create exceptions, but there aren’t many.</p>
<p>The fact is, of the unhooked student body at HYPSM (this is something that cannot be overlooked), the overwhelming majority has top grades and scores.</p>
36 ACTers are getting in at over twice the rate of 33-35 ACTers. Furthermore, a much lower percentage matriculates, indicating that more of the 36 ACTers are getting into other top schools as well. This isn’t rocket science; these are reasonable inferences from available data.</p>
<p>If you mean literally 2400 vs. 2130 there is a vast difference. Something like 270 kids get 2400 vs. 35,000 with 2130 (or better) – superscoring aside. Factoring in superscoring changes the calculus somewhat, but you get the point. And as for HYPSM, their mean scores are way above 2130 for the unhooked.</p>
<p>Statistically speaking, it’s not a big difference. When you get into the upper echelons of performance on the SAT (if all we’re talking about is performance on the SAT, and not anything else), differences that would be huge at lower levels aren’t that large there. It’s 270 points. For comparison, a 1700 is in the 72nd percentile, but a 1430 is in the 41st percentile. BIG difference.</p>
<p>The problem is, admissions officers are not usually statisticians. They typically tend to go by looks. And at a school where the majority of viable kids applying are going to have 700+ in each section (~2100) there may very well be a big difference between a 2130 and a 2400. I mean, it’s still 270 points, regardless of the fact that percentile rank differences are very small (a 2130 is STILL in the top 3% of test-takers in the nation).</p>
<p>That’s why I answered the way I did in my first post. Is retaking it with a 2130 necessary? No, of course not, especially since the OP is applying to LACs that look at applicants much more holistically than larger schools (and some schools that would die to have a 2130). Would it help if he retook and got a 2400? Sure, of course it would. Higher scores are always better. But considering that the average score jump from junior to senior year is 40-50 points, I wouldn’t if I’d already gotten a 2130. That’s a fantastic score and he should be proud of himself.</p>
Compare the scores amongst applicants in the pools of top colleges. A 2400 sits at the 99th percentile whereas the 2130 probably resides near the middle percentiles, varying greatly of course from college to college (for most of the schools the OP is looking at, a 2130 is high percentile-wise). I’m definitely not implying that the OP should not be content with his score, but it would do him a disservice to deny that increasing his SAT score by 100+ points wouldn’t serve him a great advantage for his Dartmouth application. If that’s really where OP wants to go and he wants a strong chance at it then he should go for a retake.</p>
<p>^^Agree, a 2250 has a much higher admit rate at Dartmouth than does a 2100. But one other item to consider: a higher score could also make the OP competitive for Colgate’s “merit” scholarship program – not really a scholarship, but nice research and travel stipend.</p>