<p>I received a 1640 on the SAT! I got a 490 on the writing. I was only saved by my math, which was a 630. How would having this score effect my chances to get into college?</p>
<p>I have a 4.5 GPA and a good amount of extracurriculars.</p>
<p>In your experience, would taking the SAT again help or should i give up and try the ACT?</p>
<p>No amount of EC's could make up for a low SAT score.</p>
<p>What is your unweighted GPA? None of this weighted crap; every school weighs differently.</p>
<p>Take the SAT again AND take the ACT.<br>
My child is in the same boat as you-high GPA owing to very hard work and an SAT score that does not accurately reflect her GPA.<br>
Good luck and don't dismay.</p>
<p>My unweighted GPA is 4.0.</p>
<p>I'll take the SAT and ACT again, but I might not take the SAT, if I get a high score on the ACT. I'll definitely take some more SAT subject tests next year.</p>
<p>i think that's a great example of grade inflation!
you can't possibly get those kind of scores after getting all A's ap/ honors class ( doesn't matter if the subject is unrelated)</p>
<p>there is too much difference between your GPA and score to be seen as you are just bad test taker. with that much difference, college will start to doubt the value of your GPA , and that wouldn't be good.</p>
<p>do you get when i mean?</p>
<p>Actually, I fell asleep for part of the test and I got a headache. I didn't know it was 10 sections. I think I'll do better on the ACT because I'm better at Science and Math.</p>
<p>I did poorly on the SATs too, I don't think it was because I am stupid. I had Posion Ivy and could not concentrate at all. All I could do is fight temptation to not scratch it. Just because you do poorly on one test does not mean anything.</p>
<p>rainynightsstarz, its not necessarily grade inflation, in fact in most cases its not. the sat and gpa are two SEPARATE things, their is no correlation. GPA is after years of work, and displays work ethic to college admissions, while SAT is a standardized test, which describes 1 day's worth of knowledge. just think rainystarznight the sat tests BASIC math skills and reading skills. those skills are learned in the middle skool years, thus there really is no evidence of grade inflation. those that score high on the sat and have a low gpa, would love to think so.</p>
<p>Take a practice test in a normal environment, preferable non-conducive to sleep. If you do significantly better, take it again. If not, I'd suggest moving on to the ACT.</p>
<p>well if the OP fell asleep then she obviously should retake it and those scores would not reflect how well she would really do. and that's another story</p>
<p>to nmehta4: GPA DOES correlate with SAT , there is no doubt about that. obviously there won't be a .99 r^2, but there is no way you can deny that they correlate. furthermore, GPA DOES reflect your mastery of the subject, not just your work ethic. For many AP classes hw is worth less than 20% of your whole grade, unless you can know the subject, and can do well on the tests, don't expect to get an A( lots of classes in college will be 95% based on exams, so you better brush up your test taking skills). However, if you went to an grade inflated school, then you don't really need to know the subject to do well.(the only way to prove that your school does NOT have inflated grades is with AP scores and SAT 2 scores, to OP: what did you get on those?)
you stated that SAT skills are learned in the middle school years, however in many parts of US they DON"T LEARN ALGEBRA 1 till high school. Thus, your statement is very false, it's more like things learned in 9th grade 10th grade. If it IS as basic as you make it, then doing bad in it is even more not justified, because if one can't even do well on "basic" stuff , how would one have the foundation to do well on more advanced things?</p>
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those that score high on the sat and have a low gpa, would love to think so.
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my SAT is not great, but i don't have low GPA, either.But i can tell you that no one in my school that have a 4.0+ weighted GPA would score below 1800</p>
<p>The average in writing nationwide is a 497 so you weren't too far off. I only got an 1820 and I'm taking them again for a third time in October. I am also taking the ACTs in September. I have heard that those who do better in school, generally do better on the ACTs. The ACTs don't try to trick you like the SATs do. Just try to improve your writing, although your writing SAT should correlate with your grades in English in school. For example, if you are getting A's in English, but only get a 490 on the SATs, admissions offices might find that weird. Also, a lot of colleges only refer to the writing portion for a verification of your essay that you submit to them; in other words, you can't submit a great essay with a 490 in writing because it won't be believable. My writing jumped 90 points after I retook it, so it can happen!</p>
<p>rainynightstarz, if you state that GPA does correlate with SAT, then look to other forms of standardized testing such as SAT II's and AP's. lets take my sat II score for lets say USH for example, i got a 760, don;t kno my AP score, and had a 99 in the class. Now tell me, how does doing that well have any impact on my sat score, it doesnt. any science, social studies class, any upper level math class, any language class, have NO impact on my sat scores. so yes i agree that gpa reflects mastery in a level of subject, but how is that revelant to your argument??? its not. </p>
<p>and fine, sat skills are also learned early in high school, very early. and the amount of classes that are necessary for the sat have little impact on your high school GPA. For math, for instance, u need Algebra 1, II, and Geometry, thats all nothing more. for Reading, you need NOTHING, just the basic reading skills, i don't kno about you but we dont critcally read passages at skool. We read books and we either discuss rhetoric (nothing to do with CR) or comprehension (which does, but isn't as much indept). Thus, there is no correlation whatsoever. Plus, there are more studies that support my position than there are yours. That is precisely why, most individuals (i.e. college admissions, teachers, parents, etc...) will agree that the sat is a test that DOES NOT measure your success in college. GPA measures success much better, not perfect though, because it measures. 1) work ethic, and 2) as you stated mastery of material.</p>
<p>I am not saying SAT is a measure of your success ( when did i even say anything about success? o.O). But the only reason there is more studies that SAT is not a good test is that there are more people are interested in proving it wrong then right. Common sense that there is no need to prove something right when it is already said to be "right". (people who object will be more likely to do something about it , example- studies, post stuff like you, reply to surveys. etc)
Normally only people that get SAT scores way different from their grade would post threads (yet another form of self-selecting representative). And people generally remember those scores better, making a disproportion of representatives of possible outliers in one's mind.</p>
<p>Isn't 760 and A in your US history class a good correlation of doing well in class and the test?
People from my grade that got A in my calc bc class all had 800 in math 2c and 5 on the AP test? good correlation, no?
People that got A in my AP chem class all got 750+ with many 800s in SAT 2 , again, good correlation? While people that had A in chem honors didn't do as well (low 700s) good proof that harder classes does make a difference, aye?</p>
<p>I was more talking about SAT 1 scores with GPA in general, and just refuting your arguments...</p>
<p>if you want to talk about correlation, no problem
take an SRS of 1000 people's SAT scores and their GPA and plot a scatter plot. I assure you THERE WILL BE A POSITIVE CORRELATION! and of course, there will be outliers, but most people will not stray to far away from the best fit line(haha arguing with stats is fun). Even my stats professor would agree there is a correlation without second thought.</p>
<p>There are MANY MANY people that take Algebra 2/Trig their junior and senior year in the US, so they are NOT learned very early on in high school. Thus, you are wrong again. The readings might be "simple" but one must understand them well, practice from normal English class? And the writing... can't write a quality paper in high school without proper grammar (with exceptions of extreme stylization). No test is prefect, and while GPA might be a better measurement of success, there will have just as many outliers as SAT will be good measure of success. and just because one is said to better measure success, doesn't mean there is no correlation between them. but then , one can't measure success. And generally, the higher the level of class, the less "work ethic" will go into your grade.</p>
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there are more studies that support my position than there are yours
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lol, reminds me of my grandfather's math class when he was little. if the majority of the class thinks 5<em>7=34, then 5</em>7 equals 34, and he would get marked off for writing 35. </p>
<p><em>back to history hw, even though arguing is fun</em></p>
<p>p.s. since the OP said he/she fell asleep then it would be a different story. However, anyone with 4.5 Weight and 4.0 UW with 1600s while trying and not asleep will have a very high chance for grade inflation.</p>
<p>GPA reflects work ethic. SAT reflects one's ability at a given point in time. Those with higher SAT scores usually find school easier than those with lower scores. Both groups of people can get As...it's just a question of the effort needed. </p>
<p>I did well on the SAT and I have a high GPA, but, to be honest, I just coast on talent in school. Many of my friends who have significantly lower SATs than I do have as good/better GPAs because they bother to take notes/study. They put the effort in to achieve the desired goal. </p>
<p>So yeah, someone can have straight As and have low SATs because GPA doesn't rely solely on ability.</p>
<p>thank you, someone understands... and to explain the correlation you stated rainystarznight, there will always be some correlation because its simply much more likely that a person w/ high sats is motivated to make good grades. its as simple as that. but that doesnt mean that if u score low, and your gpa is high, its skool inflation, thats ludicrous</p>
<p>rainynightstarz has very strong points in his argument. But retake the test with studying, without the factor of fatigue because you studied.</p>
<p>maybe the ACT will be easier, it was MUCH easier for me since it was so straight forward. i have a 4.0 unweighted and got a 1940 sat and 33 act.</p>
<p>nmehta your description of the SAT makes it out to be an easy test that middle-school kids can ace. Sure the math is only basic subjects, but people still have trouble. As for critical reading, the section is definitely not in anyway basic. The vocabulary is college level vocab and the passages are taken from established magazines, journals, novels, etc.</p>
<p>As I've said in teh past, I think the SAT is a combination of inherent mental acuity (math), combined with all the reading ability and knowledge you've acumulated(CR). GPA is much more a measure of work ethic. There are people in my grade who study A LOT. They still make the grade and rank in teh top 20 or so. But, when they take the SAT, they have trouble breaking 2000, so in that aspect, I agree. There isn't always a direct correlation between the two, and hard working kids can do nothing academic outside of shcool, and smart kids can be really lazy. But usually, people who score well on the SAT and have a good work ethic, will do better in school and have higher GPA's than those who score lower</p>