<p>Hello all,</p>
<p>My daughter plans to apply for top schools next fall and it looks like Stanford is her top choice. She has great overall numbers:</p>
<p>Asian Female going to a public school (Junior this year)
4.0 UW GPA (taking all the toughest available regular and AP courses),
good-to-greatgreat EC and evidence of commitment to local community
Potentially
SAT II Math 750 Sat II French 800
780 SAT I Math and 770 SAT Reading</p>
<p>However, her SAT writing score is only 640 (89th percentile) bringing her overall SAT score down to 2190. </p>
<p>Would you advise her to take SAT again to bring her total to > 2200 (I read in another thread that they tend to view 2200 and above as a group)? Would her weak SAT writing score have a major negative impact? She is confident of improving her score is she takes it again, but is it worth it (She plans to take Physics and Math II Subject tests in October.</p>
<p>Thanks in advance!</p>
<p>Why doesn't she call up Stanford and ask if they even consider the writing score. I bet they don't.</p>
<p>Not necessarily, since the essays will be written and can be judged on quality. What you have to worry about is having very good essays, but a bad SAT score in writing, as this could indicate that you received outside help on the essays. I usually don't recommend taking the test again, but having an SAT score below 2200 is generally not a good thing. Then again, I wouldn't worry too much about it. It's up to you.</p>
<p>I recommend taking it again, definitely. Stanford acceptance rate was less than 10% this year, so there is no room for error. I applied SCEA with a 2380 SAT score, 13 AP classes, etc and was deferred then accepted. Take it again. I took the SAT 5 times lol (and got into all of the major schools).</p>
<p>Only take it again if you think you can improve your score significantly. I retook some of the tests, and even after studying, never did better. I would say that unless you see a 50 point increase in at least two sections, it is not worth it. Stanford looks at more than a single test (let alone a single section). Don't worry too much about it.</p>
<p>I know of someone who was accepted with a Writing Score in the high 500's.</p>
<p>Thanks for all the responses!</p>
<p>After discussing about it, my D has decided to retake in October. She thinks she can significantly increase the writing score while keeping the other two scores within the same range (Her June '07 numbers are 780, 770 and 640 ). Assuming that she gets 780, 770 and 750 in October, not only will she have good all-around scores, but she'd have also demonstrated that she has worked on the writing section during summer.</p>
<p>On this note, does anyone know if schools look at SAT score trends? In other words, would a school prefer candidate A, scoring 780, 770 and 640 on first attempt and 780, 770 and 750 in second attempt over candidate B who took the test only once and scored 780, 770 and 750? One could argue that, with so many top applicants, these top level-schools would try and infer as much info as possible about applicants. In the scenario above, candidate A has had an opportunity to show that he/she works on his/her problems and limitations, whereas candidate B's SAT score does not provide any information other than the absolute score.</p>
<p>Coincidentally, how is 690 on Writing? My essay was 8. Will they look at the SAT essay and compare?! My SAT essay was abysmal and my application essays will definitely be better.</p>