<p>My daughter, rising senior took her 1st SAT in June; got good, if not spectacular reading and writing but brought home a 460 in math.</p>
<p>She has always been a lot stronger in humanities than math but she has done well in grades in math in a challenging high school (A in honors AI, B honors geometry, A AII). She did switch out of honors math last year to regular because of pace but found regular way too easy.</p>
<p>Other than that she's got great grades, EC's, athletics, and is a URM.</p>
<p>Her top choices are Claremont McKenna and USC and last spring her college counselor said she is "on target" for those schools (before the test).</p>
<p>I would hate to see her derailed by this score.</p>
<p>I've put a deposit down for a Princeton class (big $ which is very, very hard for us) because she responds best to a classroom setting with other students vs. one on one or self study. She is very motivated but just not a lone studier.</p>
<p>But I want advice:</p>
<p>what is the best way for helping her raise her score? (R&W some and math a LOT). We live in the Seattle area if anyone knows the local scene.</p>
<p>can she be admitted to these schools with good r&w and bad math (she will definitely not be majoring in math!) how do admissions look at lopsided scores?</p>
<p>are there people out there who raised their score 100 at least and how?</p>
<p>whatever improvement you get the 2nd time does it make sense taking a 3rd or should you just stop and save your sanity?</p>
<p>I have the same problem and although I still need to raise my math score a lot, I did improve it by studying on my own. The barrons book is pretty good, it's really intense and it gives you tons of practice problems. The group class I took helped a little (i don't think it was PR though), but nothing replaces practicing and studying on your own. Also, I think colleges are forgiving for a lower math score if you're majoring in the humanities or anything non-math/science related.</p>
<p>Considering that she has decent math grades she may do much better on the ACT. Check your local library for an ACT review book and see how she does on a practice test.</p>
<p>What are her scores for writing and reading. Did she break 2000?</p>
<p>To be honest... if your really want her to go to USC, she needs to bring the Math score up. I think USC admission is around 2000ish +</p>
<p>But remember, that most colleges are not just looking at SAT's alone. It helps if she is actively involved in clubs and the community and has some form of skills such as in sports or music or whatnot. I don't think USC will deny your daughter over a bad math section, but it will lower her chances. </p>
<p>I'm an upcoming senior and I found that I raised my score by simply doing a lot of tests. like 14 tests. On psat is scored like a horrendous 1680 and then I took the SAT and i got like 500 points higher.</p>
<p>I really didn't find those classes beneficial. I took the Kplan class for $600, and I was unconscious the entire time. Extremely BORING.</p>
<p>Just make sure she just understands the gist of the math section. The college board are a bunch of people using the same 30 problems just with different numbers each test. If you made sure she understands every problem on a test, she can do pretty much all of them on any SAT.</p>
<p>Hope this helps. </p>
<p>Oh yea... I suggest the college board SAT guide... the thick blue book with like 8 tests.</p>
<p>on average, you only have to answer like 38/54 of the math questions to get a 600 on the math. Your daughter probably just tried to answer them all and got a bad score. I reccomend this. Take a practice test in which your daugher answers 42 of the questions from the math section. See if she can get 38 of them right. If she can, great. Then aim even higher. If she can't, then just aim for a 500?</p>
<p>Ah I know what your daughter is going through sorta( just in reading). I, too, faced a similar dilemma. The first time I took the SAT, my math score was 650 and reading score 460. On my practice tests, my scores before hand were 750 math and 550 reading average, however i was sick that day and I think it made me perform lower.
The 2nd time my scores were 780 Math and 650 Reading. I think it is way harder to improve math than it is to improve reading because i was able to jump almost 200 points in reading without really working any harder.
Just have her take a bunch of practice tests but even with those i still think it would be hard to imrpove her math score</p>
<p>i know that the curve for math is much harsher than that of critical reading. I have a friend who got a 750 on math and all he had was 1 wrong and 1 omitted. However, from what i've seen on other threads, math is easier to improve than critical reading because it's all about figuring out patterns. The test gives you the same type of questions over and over again. If she takes practice tests, especially College Board ones, i think her math score will improve; however, she also needs to understand the material that is tested. She has to know what functions, parabolas, etc. are before she can recognize patterns in the test. </p>
<p>I think laserbase found reading easier to improve than math simply because he did much worse on reading than in math....so it's easier to go from a 550 to a 650 than it is to improve an already stellar math score.</p>
<p>My school offered an expensive Princeton Review SAT class that i opted not to sign up for; however, a lot of my friends did and they found it to be useless. Their scores ranged from 1600-1750ish (around 1100 something in the 1600 scale). From what I hear, all those classes do is teach you what is in their $20 books...but if she finds classrooms better than self-studying then she could find some benefit in it</p>
<p>I took the PR prep course, pretty much specificly for math. I raised my score in math from a 59 (PSAT) to a 710. I reccomend it for those who have a hard time with self-motivation (like your daughter and me), but do well in class situations. You don't see too many of those in CC though...</p>
<p>Tell her to fall asleep during the CR and W, otherwise she might get screwed up. Good luck though.</p>
<p>Well she is very motivated it is just she does better with structure and groups/teams, etc. Wish it wasn't so (to save me $) but that's the fact; she is a very good student though just not a lone wolf</p>