"but other, higher-ranked schools may be cutting off at 1500 due to the recent score inflation of the new SAT. "
Is that just an anecdotal comment or has somebody actually heard that from an Adcom? I had a chat with an Ivy league professor recently and her view that while she should take the exam again in October (which she is) that a 1460 is not going to get her cut off from that school particularly as she has 760+ on 3 SAT II’s and top marks on all of her GSCE/AS exams. I do think that she will do better in October as she is scoring around 1550 now on the recent timed practice papers and there was a screw-up on one of the sections in June that cost her 3 wrong answers.