<p>^ wow... small issue, big argument</p>
<p>Dko, do you by any chance go to school in Fallujah? How are you a valedictorian with a 1380/2400 and a GPA of 3.2?</p>
<p>I am international. Most of our student do not even know what S.A.T stand for loOl and it was my first time taking it with 3 months of speaking English and 20 days before the test of prep>>because I did not even know I had to take it :)
We do not use SAT in Senegal.</p>
<p>
[quote]
^ wow... small issue, big argument
[/quote]
What can I say, I'm the cat's meow.
[quote]
Dko, do you by any chance go to school in Fallujah? How are you a valedictorian with a 1380/2400 and a GPA of 3.2?
[/quote]
The SAT doesn't factor into valedictorian status. dko came here from Africa in September and has only spoken our native tongue for three months. He also only had twenty days to prepare for the SAT. Cut him some slack, he was the valedictorian.</p>
<p>Edit: Whoops, I guess dko explained himself already. :P</p>
<p>more goods dont hurt Foreman :)</p>
<p>Foreman ur not the cat's meow..lol</p>
<p>
[quote]
Foreman ur not the cat's meow..lol
[/quote]
Seriously. Your arrogance isn't supported.</p>
<p>are u talkin to me?</p>
<p>Little Stevie is mad because I got on him about making an ******* comment towards dko.</p>
<p>wow man you guys are pretty mean.</p>
<p>what the hell? senegal has internet?</p>
<p>NOT the end of the world -- just a step in another direction. There are a lot of elite colleges out there that have determined, scientifically, there is no correlation between SAT scores and success at their campus. I had to cross off Vassar, Barnard, Bryn Mawr, Skidmore and Oberlin. But I still have applications at Mount Holyoke and Smith, Sarah Lawrence, Hampshire, Bard and Bennington. Middlebury gives you a choice: the SAT OR you can take three SAT IIs (which are much easier). The list of anti-SAT admissions depts is long and it's getting longer. When Mt Holyoke gave applicants the option of submitting their SAT scores, they found that white upper middle class students declined, minority lower income applicants continued to submit scores. They admitted an entire class in a process that ignored the SATs. Once they were done, and admissions letters were sent out, the school checked SAT scores. They found that admitted students who had scored low were just as successful as their higher scoring colleagues. But as noted, the low scores usally indicated their parents had less money, did not attend classes, could not hire a tutor, had fewer resources to impress the admissions dept. They wanted their students to be more than affluent, so they dropped the SAT altogether, and aren't looking back.</p>
<p>You will never have an ideal way to represent your intellectual potential. Especially if you are an international student... Let's say you have a 4.0 GPA in a state school. How are the adcoms supposed to know how rigorous your school is, what do subjects cover, etc.? They are not familiar with it if it is not A level, IB, AP and other standart system. So they need to rely on your STANDARTIZED testing scores. Of course, one can prep a lot for SAT, while others do not get a chance, that is understandable. And when reviewing your application, they will know that test prep is most likely not to be offered in your country. And that is why there are kids from my country who get into top 5 universities with ~2000 SATs. For them, it is an IQ test. They do not get some coaching for it, they read the collegeboard bluebook, and take the test. Subject tests mostly measure your knowledge in one area or another, but SAT 1 more or less measures your logic ability and English comprehension (without any preparation, that is). And since SAT numbers are the only numbers that look familiar to adcom., they will be strongly emphasized.</p>
<p>Dko, you say you haven't known English long enough, and that is why you got below average reading and writing scores. Ok, but if that is the case, how are you going to study in an Ivy? You won't be able to cope, simply to comprehend the material. I mean, it is not like you will tell the professor "Sorry, I just started speaking english, so I might not be able to do the homework". It is good to be optimistic, but do not forget about being realistic either.</p>
<p>Woooooooooooow, some of you need to take a page out of the OP's book on this one.</p>
<p>Whether or not he has a legit chance at any of the schools he/she applied to, at least his/her head is in the right place. If I thought test scores were everything and the be-all end-all of determining my existence, I wouldn't be at Penn right now.</p>
<p>Nothing wrong with swinging for the fences. Better than going emo because your number is a few points lower than somebody else's.</p>
<p>^ a few points?</p>
<p>If he had an 1850-1900, my response would be completely different. It would be more along the lines of "Go for it! You have nothing to lose! Your scores might be significantly lower than the lowest 25% of appplicants, but never know! Write some kick-butt essays!" </p>
<p>He doesn't.</p>
<p>That's why my response is:
why would you waste the application fee? No, you don't have a slim chance. You don't have any chance at all. I'm not being cruel or demeaning; I'm being realistic. The vast majority of extremely selective schools DO have mental score cutoffs, whether they admit it or not. Look at the stats. No one at Harvard has below a 1600. No one. Not one student. When they say "hey, don't worry about 'low' scores! We look at the whole application," they're referring to 1700-2000 scores. Period. Do you realize that people with 2100s are scared silly about their chances, because 2200+ is typically an adcom's mental note of 'OK, this student goes in the competitive pile'??
Furthermore, the international applicant pool is even tougher and more selective than the American one. There are a bazillion kids from India and Korea applying with perfect scores and perfect grades. They will almost all get rejection letters. Go read some NY Times articles about Korean high school students. That's your competition.
I can personally guarantee you that half of the schools to which you applied won't even read your essays at all.</p>
<p>honestly speaking, Dko is going to have a hard time. I'm a ghanaian also applying to some of the top schools. I'm in an uber-competitive high school (a student had 10A*s in her igcses and 2000 on SAT 1, she's in yale now) with about 5 syudents getting scores of 2000 and higher . I was the highest in my year with a 2100 and 1580 on 2 sat IIs. I got deferred form stanford and another guy with 2080 on SAT 1 and 2320 on 3 SAT IIs got rejected outright. We all know that we have slim chances of entering. a 1380 won't do you much good. it will take someting super-interesting a la 21 (the movie) to get adcoms to overlook those scores. that is the reality. But who knows, prove me wrong...</p>
<p>
<p>If he had an 1850-1900, my response would be completely different. It would be more along the lines of "Go for it! You have nothing to lose! Your scores might be significantly lower than the lowest 25% of appplicants, but never know! Write some kick-butt essays!" </p>
<p>He doesn't.</p>
<p>That's why my response is: why would you waste the application fee? No, you don't have a slim chance. You don't have any chance at all. I'm not being cruel or demeaning; I'm being realistic. The vast majority of extremely selective schools DO have mental score cutoffs, whether they admit it or not. Look at the stats. No one at Harvard has below a 1600. No one. Not one student. When they say "hey, don't worry about 'low' scores! We look at the whole application," they're referring to 1700-2000 scores. Period. Do you realize that people with 2100s are scared silly about their chances, because 2200+ is typically an adcom's mental note of 'OK, this student goes in the competitive pile'?? Furthermore, the international applicant pool is even tougher and more selective than the American one. There are a bazillion kids from India and Korea applying with perfect scores and perfect grades. They will almost all get rejection letters. Go read some NY Times articles about Korean high school students. That's your competition. I can personally guarantee you that half of the schools to which you applied won't even read your essays at all.
<strong><em>. This thread is not for you and your prickish comments, you self serving son of a *</em></strong>.</p>
<p>Everyone please stop chancing dko because that is not the point of this thread</p>
<p>^ What clever, witty use of vocabulary! You consistently emanated intelligence and wisdom in your posts. I'm honored.</p>
<p>He'll probably have a hard time getting in as his stats are lower than some of his choice schools' medians, but that doesn't mean it's impossible. As a high school student who is, like the OP, going through the college application process for the first time, you're not really qualified to tell him that it's impossible, and you're also not really in a position to claim that nobody at Harvard or anywhere has below X score unless you've conducted some kind of survey of the student body there, which I doubt you have.</p>
<p>You're right about it being tough, but making unfounded assumptions ("I personally guarantee that nobody at the top schools will read your essays") is a silly thing to say.</p>
<p>To the OP, one of the main things I can tell you is to take comments like those with a grain of salt, especially considering that they are coming from your competition. You have a slim chance, I won't lie, but if those top schools didn't consider students with a low score, they would set a minimum SAT score requirement in order to apply.</p>
<p>It seriously scares me to think that I might be going to college with some of you guys. </p>
<p>Be nice to others on the playground, kids. :P</p>