How much would a 34 ACT (or as a stretch, a 35) help my admission chances to Stanford? I got a 33 first time with minimal prep (35 R, 34 E, 32 M, 31 S) and am wondering if a 34 increases my chances significantly. For instance, PrepScholar says the 75th percentile score at Stanford is a 34, but I’m not entirely sure how accurate this is.
Also, as I got a 1440 on my first SAT with no prep (I plan on retaking), can a second, better SAT score offset the first? In other words, can a 1500+ make Stanford Admissions overlook the 1440?
To answer your first question, your 34 ACT score would certainly give your application consideration by the admission’s office. They won’t be impressed since they have turned down people with 36 ACT scores, hence why people shouldn’t base their chances off of a test grade. However, there really isn’t much you can do anymore, as striving for a 36 would be a waste of time and effort.
To answer your second question, yes, by a great deal. Stanford superscores your SAT, meaning that they will consider your highest reading and math grades from all the SAT tests you have taken. Say for example you got a 720 on your CR+G and a 720 on your Math on your first SAT. If you were to get a 710 on the next CR+G and a 760 on your Math on your second SAT, they would take your 720 from your first CR+G score on your SAT and a 760 on your second Math SAT for a grand total of a 1480. It’s a pretty neat concept.
Thank you! So you said a 34 gets me consideration - are you implying a 33 does not? Just curious, as 33 seems to fall in the Stanford range as the average score.
No, of course not. A 33 equates to a 1500 on the New SAT scale. It’s a truly impressive test grade, but test grades are only a fraction of your application.
A great candidate with a strong background and a 33 is more likely to get in than a boring and bland person who got a 36.
I would say that 1500 and above on SAT and 33 and above on ACT will put you in a fantastic position for Stanford, the only problem is that Stanford is a private school so a fantastic SAT/ACT score will only be one of the many factors they’ll look at, they want all round students or really rich students whose parents can just pay his or her way to that private university. Still having a 1500 or 33 above on these tests will definitely give you a chance, but the problem is that people with perfect scores have been rejected maybe because of their EC’s. There have been other students who have scored even less than 1500 or 33 still got in all because of their EC’s which makes me hate these private universities. So make sure you have good EC’s for private schools, but if u apply to UC BERKELEY OR UMICH you would get in just based on these fantastic SAT/ACT test scores which what public universities really look at.
Completely false @“Hassan Zaidi” . Berkeley has holistic review, which means that they review every aspect of the application word by word and sometimes read the app three times. So before you attempt to shed light to help someone or whatever the scenario is, respectfully, get your facts straight haboob.
Stanford, the ivies and other highly selective schools are not as straightforward when it comes to evaluating test scores. They look at test scores based on race, ethnicity, gender and family background. I don’t want to get into debating this policy, there are a few threads already on cc that discuss this. However, objectively, it is a factor, so if you can give that, I think we can give a better answer. As an example, a 33/1440 would be on the lower side for Asians, most Asians that apply to Stanford have 34-36 and/or 1550-1600.
It’s a bit misleading when people say SAT/ACT are not really important when it comes to top colleges. I think this quote from Stanford’s website summarizes the situation well:
“Even perfect test scores don’t guarantee admission. Far from it: 69 percent of Stanford’s applicants over the past five years with SATs of 2400—the highest score possible—didn’t get in.”
This means that perfect scorers have a 30% chance of admission (which is way higher than the average 5%), but the majority of them still get rejected from Stanford.
I don’t think anyone is saying they aren’t important, just that after a certain threshold, they’re less important as most applicants will be similar. My guess is that 2250 was that threshold in the old SATs. A 2280 and a 2320 probably are considered the same (unless the scores are imbalanced). And very few applicants with 1800 are applying.
