<p>It’s not worthless; it’s just not significantly more worthy than any other 2300+ score.</p>
<p>People seem to think 2400ers get rejected because they do nothing but study. For the sake of argument, I had a 2400 first sitting, in addition to holding a presidencies and winning a sizeable list of awards. You may think: “your essays probably showed that you were arrogant or boring.” On the contrary, I spent many hours editing my essays, and my friends/teachers thought I did an “excellent job” on them. However, I was outright rejected by Harvard and Yale this year.</p>
<p>Honestly, you gotta be an athlete, URM, first to go to college, or made national headlines… that is what I have observed.</p>
<p>I have made national headlines.</p>
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<p>It probably isn’t - CC only represents a small slice of the 35,000 students who applied this year, after all.</p>
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<p>I’m sorry about the outcome of your admissions decision, afkatm - I urge you take a step back, put the decisions in perspective, and take a deep breath. You don’t need to go to Harvard to go on to make something of yourself - I’m sure you’ll do brilliantly, no matter where you ultimately end up, provided that you continue to apply yourself as you have done in the past. Good luck!</p>
<p>One thing that hasn’t really been mentioned yet: the Availability Heuristic - [Availability</a> heuristic - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia](<a href=“http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Availability_heuristic]Availability”>Availability heuristic - Wikipedia). Cases in which people get 2400 and are rejected from top notch schools are much more easily remembered than people with 2200-2300 who don’t get in. Just because people with 2400s don’t get in doesn’t mean that 2400 is worthless. In addition to that, if you’re looking at people on collegeconfidential, it might be that a person who gets a 2400 and is rejected is more likely to post something than someone who gets a 2400 and is accepted. </p>
<p>College admissions are hard - many people who are qualified don’t get into their schools of choice. And many people who apply to these schools have great SAT scores, so it won’t help you stand out. But if you have around a 2200 and are confident in being able to boost it up by maybe 100 points I think it’s worth doing so. Even if it doesn’t help you stand out, it’s better to be closer to the top of the applicant pool (as long as you don’t overdo it).</p>
<p>Just my 2 cents.</p>
<p>I personally think that people who get 2400 tend to (not always, so don’t hold me to this statement completely) use a lot of their own time to get the score. Thus, it hurts their extracurriculars and such. For Stanford, I believe that Stanford was looking a lot for talent-based people (talented in sports, music etc) as I am a person who got in (most likely due to my music supplement on violin. I’ve been playing for 13 years). Harvard, not too certain haha</p>
<p>Oh also, I’m asian with a 2210</p>
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False. The SAT is a test of talent, not of studying. Studying helps you improve, don’t get me wrong, it’s just that, only in rare cases will studying like hell get you a 2400. Generally, those who get 2400s are already really proficient at English and math (due to lifelong prep) and just study to master the skills and perfect it in order to get the 2400.
It’s not like someone’s going to give up playing the guitar to get a 2400, that’s just stupid.</p>
<p>glad to see some my people here.
you know how chinese rolling.couple years before, 1.9k could be a huge deal cause one achieve it nearly without seniority’s guide.
for now,smart kids spent some tiny time in language while taking high school endless test could get 2000 on his first try.
man,i really worried about guys tend to apply harvard our race years later/can u picture the scene that bunch of kids apply with 2300+ and couple international award for crying out loud…</p>
<p>huge hurt to people like us chinese.</p>
<p>I got in and I am not first generation, athlete or URM so it can be done. I didn’t take the SAT but my ACT was 35. I am not an athlete but I have been dancing (ballet) since I was three. I pushed myself in my middle class public high school with rigorous courses. I think it was probably my essay and teacher recs (though I never saw those). I got into Yale too and didn’t interview. I did interview for Harvard. I am sorry there are so few spots. I didn’t expect to get in, but I am proof that it can be done. I also got into Duke, Dartmouth, Rice and Vandy. Hopefully, people can get off the waiting list once decisions are made. Best of luck to everyone and at least high school is over soon, I for one and ready for the next step.</p>
<p>I totally believe that Harvard values individuality. I had a 1960 SAT, 30 ACT, am a White Male from Georgia, and was accepted to HARVARD. Not saying that I did not get a little lucky, but I definitely think that my good grades, diverse activities, and perseverance were significantly more important than a 4-5 hour test.</p>
<p>SATs SATs SATs! I can’t remember people speaking of anything but this throughout high school. It seems to have been made the crux of our educational career. I took this exam once and received a 2130 and yet was still accepted to Harvard. It’s hard for me to believe that 3 hours taken from a single day can determine the fate of our entire life. The one piece of advice I can give is to be real, sincere, and worldly. Many high scoring individuals have become “artificial” in an attempt to impress. I sought to develop my intuition and broadened my interests through interdisciplinary work during High School. Just take a chance and let your passions run wild.</p>
<p>The biggest reason I think I received an acceptance was because I didn’t seek perfection in my academic life. I dream of bigger things than getting a 2400. The SAT is not my life’s landmark and I will most likely never think back on it again. I move forward without regret.</p>
<p>I agree that the importance of the SAT is overemphasized, but saying that taking the SAT is akin to having your fate decided in a period of 4 hours is a serious logical fallacy. </p>
<p>Your SAT score is not supposed to be reflective of 4 hours of test-taking, but of your critical thinking abilities that you should have had developed through having intellectual discussions and reading challenging literature throughout your life; of your grasp of mathematical concepts that you should have learned about throughout middle and high school, and of your ability to speak and write grammatically correct English. </p>
<p>Though how precisely the SAT measures these abilities is disputable, it is true for the overwhelming majority of students who think critically, reason well, and write correctly that they score well enough to get into excellent colleges. As such, the SAT is not a 4-hour event that decides your fate, but a benchmark of what you have been doing, and how intellectual an environment you grew up in throughout your life.</p>