<p>I understand that a lot of colleges claim to take a holistic view of your application, even the most selective schools. Yet I also understand that when superscoring SAT scores, they will not pay as much attention to writing as they do reading and math. </p>
<p>Personally, I do very well in reading and writing, but I have yet to even break the 600 mark for math (590). The reading and writing bring me up to 1910, so I either meet or break the average SAT score of most my top colleges on a scale out of 2400. HOWEVER, out of 1600 (just reading and math) I sometimes fall below the average. </p>
<p>How much will this hurt my application? Math just is not my strong point, but I do well in the class. It isn't the problems, it's just my time-management. </p>
<p>I do well in school and am involved, I'm just a little concerned with my SAT math score...</p>
<p>P.S. (If you have time) : Do AP scores affect admissions? Depending on the subject I range from 2-5...</p>
<p>I don’t know about holistic application process. But high school students here seem to believe that admission isn’t holistic. I’m saying this because people tend to list certain GPA, EC, SAT/ACT and ask us to chance them. horrible thing :mad: . It never works out in this way. It’s impossible to say how an admission officer will see an application as there are many factors. But GPA+SAT/ACT make or break application as all schools except Harvard (not sure about this) weight these things as “very important” in their common data set. </p>
<p>as for AP, most schools use it for placement rather than admission. But it has a relationship with course rigor. if your school offers 5 APs and you’ve taken 3, then your course load won’t be be considered most rigorous.</p>
<p>Holistic is a pretty generic term. By and large it means that schools don’t use a rigorous GPA and SAT score table for admissions, but take a look at your overall application. How much you’ve challenged yourself. How strong your EC’s are. What you write in your essays. What your teachers say about you. If you had challenging life circumstances. And so on. As you can see it’s kind of vague, so there’s no way to say what exactly this will mean regarding your math score.</p>
<p>One other comment. You say you are involved in school. Not sure what that means specifically. You should know that at more selective schools they don’t look for someone who is just involved. They look for leadership and achievement. Joining a laundry list of clubs is not the equivalent; Such kids are termed a mile wide and an inch deep.</p>
<p>Timed practice tests should help you with math. The more problems you do, the faster you’ll be able to do them. But I’m not sure what your SAT score has to do with your original question…
As for AP scores, there have been a lot of threads on the subject. Basically, they don’t really matter for admissions, but your score compared to your grade in the class could show colleges how rigorous or relaxed your class was.</p>
<p>I’m president of a few clubs, and I guess I’m proud of my entire package except my SAT math score haha. I’m just concerned about how big of a “dent” that’ll make on my application. I just wish they had like sample applications of kids who made it into their schools, you know? Just to kind of see where I fit in. I suppose they don’t want to make it that easy for us.</p>
<p>I have a lot of AP classes, and I do well in the classes themselves, I just didn’t do so well on one of the exams… We didn’t get through all the material in the class and my teacher was new to teaching AP, but there’s really nowhere to include that nice little excuse on my app. Oh well.</p>
<p>Thanks for all the replies, greatly appreciated! :)</p>
And that’s lucky for you. “excuses” like this are self-defeating. Do you really want to tell admins that unless you are spoon-fed the material by a great teacher you won’t learn? That you can’t take the initiative to learn on your own if the teacher isn’t getting it done? That you can’t compare the syllabus listing what the test will cover with what you have gone over in class and figure out what else you better find a way to learn? </p>
<p>Perhaps you’re one of the few people that haven’t heard of MOOC classes, has never looked at iTunesU, never taken a gander at the Khan Academy, has no library within the county, I could go on and on… To claim that unless the teacher in front of you at noName HS does a wonderful job you had absolutely no other way to learn the material persuades just about no-one.</p>
<p>Its a funny thing. To you and your pals I bet your “excuse” sounds like it lets you off the hook. In the adult world its a marker of someone unwilling to take responsibility for their life, someone top employers and colleges would prefer to avoid.</p>
<p>No, I have looked at those. I read through quite a few AP books on the subject I didn’t do well on too. John Green also did some really nice videos on the history exams and I went through all of them. I know college will be like that too, I’m just saying it’s more difficult for me to learn that way and we don’t necessarily have a huge amount of time to dedicate all our attention to that subject. That’s why I called it an excuse, not an adamant reason to be let off the hook for not doing well on the exam. I’ll take my score. You have to admit that there are kids who do better because they have a better classroom environment. And I’ll admit that some kids are really great at learning on their own outside the classroom. I’m taking the responsibility for my score, by well, taking it. I’m sending it in, aren’t I? It was just casual wishful thinking! Didn’t mean to offend anyone or evoke such a strong response.</p>
<p>If your math grades are good, that may somewhat mitigate your lower test score. You might also try taking the ACT – some kids do better on that test than the SAT. </p>