In all likelihood, I’ll be retaking the SAT. A little bit about me: I’m looking to get into some top public engineering schools (UT Austin, U of Minn, UIUC, Georgia Tech, Virginia Tech, Texas A&M) and I want my SAT to be way above average to improve my chances. All in all, that means getting in the 1500-1600 area. I have a very good GPA and course rigor (all dual enrollment and AP’s) but very poor extracurriculars, so I’d consider myself an average applicant for most of these places. Therefore, I’d put my chances (I know this is just estimating) at around 30-40% (probably 20-30% for UT, UIUC, and GA Tech). I hope my SAT can boost my chances considerably, but I also don’t want to retake it more than once. My target is a 1550 and my plan is to retake if I get anything under a 1500. Is this irrational? Should I be content with a 1400-1450, or would boosting myself up to 1500-1550 help improve my chances?
Have you taken the practice tests? Do you know about what you will get based on those? If your plan is to retake it under a certain score, just retake it because it will make you feel better. It doesn’t hurt to take them more than once.
I got a 1420 on my practice test, so I’m thinking of a 1450-1500 on the real thing.
If you limit yourself on the number of times you take it, you will limit the number of opportunities you have to improve your score. 100% of my students who DON’T take the test more times DON’T increase their scores. Sacrificing 1-3 more Saturday mornings of sleep to take the tests could translate into 4 years of waking up on/near the campus of your dreams.
Once you get 750 or better on each section and 6/6/6 or better on the essay, there’s no real benefit in continuing.
If you do well in school you should be able to study and achieve 1500+