<p>Hey guys though I have straight A’s in a private high school I have a 590 on SAT CR section( but the other two are both great). I’m just concerned if Amherst will cut me down because of that without taking a look at my subjectives (b/c I have awesome essays, resume, and arts supplement). I’ll be applying ED.</p>
<p>To be honest a 590 is really low and less than 4% of admits would have a score there, and they are likely legacy or strong athletes, to be competitive I would guess you need all above 700 and two subject tests around 740+ since most of the likely admits will be there. Grades are the most important critieria I think here and they will look at all your attributes scores, grades ec’s and essays, but to be competitive a 590 is not a 700 would be if combined with other good scores, great essays & EC’s, you’ll need to take another SAT and aim to score 700 or better, you can do it.</p>
<p>true true. yea thank you! i’m taking it this weekend, but idk i might just not be a test taker type of student lol :(</p>
<p>My daughter has like credentials and will take the SATs again December 6th to try and up the CR score. Hard to believe that students with straight As and great GPAs have difficulty on the CR portion…she can’t figure out what knowledge she is lacking :(</p>
<p>@NEPatsGirl my D is applying to Amherst RD if she does not get into her ED school. When D was prepping for the SAT, she found the “Black Book” very helpful in prepping for the CR portion of the SAT. The tips in the Black Book especially helped her with the passage based reading parts of the SAT. There are a lot of good tips on the SAT prep forum. But what helped D was beefing up her vocabulary with the Essential 500 and then following the tips in the Black Book for how to attack the passage based reading questions. Good luck for your D.</p>
<p>thuss I think you really need to examine if a small LAC like Amherst is really a good fit. These schools have a very heavy emphasis on reading and writing much more so than many large top 30 universities. Even if you can raise your CR score a 590 shows that this area is not a strength for you and you will therefore be at a substantial disadvantage compared to other students even if you can somehow gain admission. The right this to do is to study and retake the test. By the way what are your other scores. A 670 in CR for instance with a 790 M is far different than all mid 600’s. Until to have your scores it’s hard to say what is realistic plus you have never said if you have a hook(URM) for instance. Without a hook a 590 will probably make admission to any top school quite a challenge. </p>
<p>If you don’t get above that 590, you might consider some test optional schools. There are some very good ones on this list:</p>
<p><a href=“ACT/SAT Optional List - Fairtest”>http://www.fairtest.org/university/optional</a> </p>
<p>Thanks for the info guys! I just retook SAT yesterday; hope I did better. Honestly last time I felt so good after the test just to find out how badly I did. @NEPatsGirl Yes I do not understand my scores. English and History are what I always do the best at school. </p>
<p>@Corinthian thanks for recommending the book <3 !</p>
<p>@SAY yea I agree small LACs have great emphases on humanities. The thing is I am looking for good humanities programs. Lol. Right, surprised to have gotten that score. Otherwise I have a 770 for math and a 680 for writing, with a 12 SAT essay. I guess I’m still gona take a shot at amherst. See what happens. </p>
<p>@intparent true and I agree- those are all good schools. But will not having submitted any test scores imply that I did really badly on them? Lol feel insecure. </p>
<p>Well… I assume the college will assume that there is some gap in your scores if you don’t submit them. But they say they will evaluate the rest of your application holistically, and I think they mean it. And… they aren’t ALL good school (plenty on that list that I wouldn’t send my kids to, honestly). But there are at least 15 or more that I would – in fact, one of my kids very happily attended and graduated from one of those schools, although she did submit test scores.</p>
<p>You really need to focus in on getting some matches and safeties, and if you have straight As but a poor CR score, I’d pick a few off this list (Bowdoin, Dickinson, Mt. Holyoke if you are female, etc.).</p>
<p>My ORM friend got into Amherst with a 600 in the writing section so don’t assume you have NO shot if your other scores (subject tests, APs) are good.</p>
<p>Tired the schools only look at M & CR scores. remember the writing section is being eliminated. </p>
<p>I still believe that it’s more about context than ONE score. If that score is literally the ONLY thing that isn’t on point with the profile of an admitted Amherst student, you may have a shot. But if you made a few Bs and got mostly 3s on your APs, I wouldn’t bet on it being overlooked.</p>
<p>A CR score that low will never be overlooked unless you have a hook of some sort. Amherst is turning away huge numbers of applicants that all have great credentials with SAT’s all above 700. An upper 600’s might sneak through but anything that starts with a 5 is never going to make through the first round of cuts unless the applicant is on one of the preferred lists. </p>
<p>If the data on this website is true (<a href=“http://www.collegedata.com/cs/data/college/college_pg02_tmpl.jhtml?schoolId=18”>http://www.collegedata.com/cs/data/college/college_pg02_tmpl.jhtml?schoolId=18</a>), then the whole an “upper 600s might sneak through” thing is a teensy bit of an exaggeration. (Not to say that a 590 is likely to be admitted without a good reason.)</p>
<p>TQuibbler you certainly have your name right. Everyone is well aware that some sports(football) admit applicants with much lower scores. But in the NESCAC the coaches are limited to just a few students that they can support. This system is well documented elsewhere so I’m not going to rehash but don’t be fooled because a handful of ED kids get in with relatively low scores because they have massive hooks. </p>
<p>Lol it said that like 30% of students fell in the 600-700 range. Maybe he was one in a million, but my friend was 770 CR/690 MT/600 WR. ORM who wants to pursue physics, ECs were almost nonexistent. Applied RD. Not an athlete. Not a legacy. No awards to his name. Not even top 1% of class. I read his essays and they were OK but kind of short. His only hook was being first-gen and I wouldn’t exactly call that a massive hook. If you saw this kid on a chances forum, would you tell him he had a good shot at Amherst?</p>
<p>I can’t conceive of him being some unique person that they made an exception for, so I can only assume it’s common for them to give leeway in some cases. Have you even seen their admissions videos? AdComm says they take scores less seriously for low-income students (not that OP seems to be in that category). </p>
<p>To answer the whole purpose of the thread: yes, scores are very important to Amherst. Not because they flawlessly reflect talent or lack thereof, but because admissions competitiveness is a game that pits colleges against each other and forces them quantify how brilliant their students are.</p>
<p>If your scores are lacking, it will hurt you, but I’m not going to advocate the, “Don’t even try!” perspective. Others will. I mean, a 590 is highly unlikely to make the cut, but if you get it up to like a low 600 or so, just go for it unless it is financially straining.</p>
<p>Tired you have much to learn about admissions. Being the first in your family to go to college is a huge hook. Also no colleges even look at the writing score. Your friend had a 1460 which is a very good score and a fabulous score for the first in a family to go to college. Almost all the students who get accepted with lower scores have some sort of hook. This is a fact and not really open for debate. </p>
<p>I’ll concede that Amherst emphasizes first-gen more than other schools and that they definitely take CR+MT more seriously than WR, but I’m not going to say that OP can’t get his score up and that he just shouldn’t apply because he scored poorly on one section during his first sitting.</p>
<p>Also you said something that is kind of silly: “CR score a 590 shows that this area is not a strength for you and you will therefore be at a substantial disadvantage compared to other students even if you can somehow gain admission.”</p>
<p>How seriously do you take these tests? Certainly the SAT has some correlation with skill, but not to the point where you can rightfully conclude that a student isn’t academically competent if they’re a little lackluster in one section. </p>