<p>I remember our info session at American U, when a young man raise dhis hand and asked about test scores, and the dean said they look at everything as a package, but that wasn't to say that someone with a 1400 (out of 1600) SAT wouldn't move to the top of the pile, so it can be a hook, but depends on the school. The elites get so many kids with perfect or near perfect scores, that it doesn't matter. I remember 2 yrs ago that the posters on the Yale site showed more kids with perfect scores being rejected than others.</p>