<p>Okay, this is a question that has been bugging me for a while - whether Colleges just look at your score, or at the percentile too.</p>
<p>The reason is, because in my SAT 1, I got 680 is Writing, which aint great, but a 94%ile which is good... So what do they look at ?</p>
<p>Another thing is with SAT 2, the grades are almost always severely inflated, I just got my SAT 2 results, and for math it was 790 and for physics is was 780 - while this may seem good, I might be in the 80-somethingth percentile ... well for now the percentiles arnt out as of yet so I really dont know the exact percentile, but im pretty sure it wont be high.</p>
<p>College admissions officers know the SAT tests and which ones have good curves, etc. They know how to interpret the scores. I’d guess it’s an even mix between percentile and actual score.</p>
<p>Consider an 800 on Lit and an 800 on Math II. I took MathII and got an 800 and I was in like, the 89th percentile. They know that Math II has a great curve and is (relatively) not a hard test. Lit, on the other hand, is difficult with a bad curve. I can almost guarantee an 800 would be the 99th or 98th percentile.</p>
<p>The fact that percentiles change is what allows them to put it into perspective and compare an 800 on say, the March SAT IIs and an 800 on the June SAT IIs. Since they’re different tests, the difficulty may vary. That’s the entire reasoning behind percentiles.</p>
<p>Waiit … one sec, so if I get everything right in the SAT 2 math and someone makes 5 mistakes and still gets a 800 … theres no way to differentiate between the two of us ??</p>
<p>But barring that, I guess they use a mix of both … the score represents how the student did across all tests, since its adjusted and stuff … and the percentile represents how he did in that test … I guess. Its been so many years and people still dont know exactly how colleges use scores ?</p>
I believe that’s true. I don’t think colleges get a score report that shows how many questions you got wrong compared to someone else who took the same test.</p>
<p>Remote, unless you have inside information, you might be over-analyzing the scores. That’s a common theme of this board. I would guess they don’t use the percentiles. We would need an Admission opinion here. If you’re looking at 5,000 applications, you have to process them with some speed. I think they’re not going to look that closely at each test by percentile, especially since there are probably some built-in filters from dealing with these tests for years. Such as 750-800 best, 700-750 next best…That may be the level of scrutiny; its only one factor in their decision. The people who write in and say “I’m retaking the test because I only got a 780” need some counseling!</p>
<p>^crawfe: I think you’re right, in that there is not much time to go back and forth with scores v. percentiles. The admissions officers probably want to have the time to read through essays more closely rather than scrutinizing percentiles.</p>
<p>That does make sense. I guess we are over analyzing, anyway I started this thread mainly because I was searching for advice, I got a 790 in Math 2 and 780 in Physics, should I give it again if I get a bad percentile (it hasnt come out yet) in the range of low 80s ?</p>
<p>Cool, there are MIT people on CC ? Yeah, if MIT is saying that then I shalnt not think about it again… [I just hope the same applies to a 780 in Physics ! :P] [yeah, im paranoid]</p>
<p>Also, if you think bout it, the really maht and scdience people take Math II, so that artifically raises all the scores. It isn’t that the test is necessarily “easier”, it’s just that everyone who takes it is usually really well qualified.</p>
<p>Yeah, I don’t think that colleges factor in the percentages. That wouldn’t be fair because, for example, the majority (or close to) of those that take the foreign language SAT IIs, are fluent, so even a 750 is not in a great percentile.</p>