<p>I scored a 2260 in March with virtually no preparation after a 214 PSAT. Math: 780, reading: 780, writing: 700. I am retaking the SAT to avenge the forgetfulness that caused me to not get an 800 on math (I forgot that multiples of special right triangles still have the same properties because I'm an idiot). </p>
<p>I didn't really do any prep for the SAT tomorrow other than reviewing some grammar rules in the last few hours. They seem to be my folly. I have read a couple books (fiction books, not prep books, haha) since the last test, so that ought to help.</p>
<p>So actually, a couple questions:</p>
<ol>
<li>If I don't manage to change my score, does it matter that writing is so much lower than math/reading? I.e. will it reflect badly on me in ANY way?</li>
<li>How much is my score likely to vary? Can I break 2300? (I pretty much am guaranteed an 800 on math- AMC school winner, math star featured on multiple plaques at school, etc.; I just made one stupid mistake and got all the other questions right)</li>
<li>Does the writing subscore even matter? I've heard fabulous rumors of colleges only really caring about the 1600 scale.</li>
<li>Is what I have now good enough for UPenn or MIT? (my top two choices at the moment)</li>
<li>I read something somewhere that the length of your essay has a fairly reliable direct relationship with its score. Have any of you heard anything about this?</li>
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<p>(Sorry for the excessive parentheses)</p>
<ol>
<li><p>There’s nobody on here, except for maybe a college rep who views these forums, who can actually answer this. Every college will view your writing score differently. Assuming you probably won’t be any type of writing/english major, some colleges may ignore it while others may not.</p></li>
<li><p>There’s also no way to answer this without knowing how much preparation you have done. And even if I did know, there are still so many variables on test day (ie. anxiousness/nervousness, tiredness, confidence, etc.) that will cause your score to vary. Judging by your previous score I would guess that you will score in the 2250-2350 range but you never know.</p></li>
<li><p>There are schools that make it known that they don’t look at the writing score (Cornell is the one that comes to mind specifically) but there are many schools that just focus on M+CR, yes. But it varies by college so it’s best to just check with each school.</p></li>
<li><p>Your score puts you in range for both of those schools. Chances are if you get rejected from these schools it won’t be due to your SAT score but rather EC’s/awards, or rather a lack of these, or your grades in general. 2260 is a very competitive score but having a higher score can only help even more.</p></li>
<li><p>While there are no statistics to prove this (I think?), it’s the general consensus that yes, longer essays generally score higher. You want to fill up the entire space as best as you can to maximize your score.</p></li>
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<p>Good luck, and hope this helps!</p>
<ol>
<li><p>It shouldn’t matter too much, my reading score was significantly lower than math/writing and I still got into MIT.</p></li>
<li><p>You can easily get an 800, just don’t make dumb mistakes. I could’ve gotten a 12 on last year’s AIME and made it to USAMO for a second time, but because of stupid mistakes I only got 8.</p></li>
<li><p>Most colleges nowadays use the 2400 scale. Check, though.</p></li>
<li><p>Yes. I got 2070 (610 R, 800 M, 660 W) and got accepted.</p></li>
<li><p>I have; graders merely skim your essays and don’t care if you’ve made up your supporting examples (b/c they’re not going to check if they are true). According to Wikipedia, the score of an essay can be determined by length about 90% of the time. This gives a correlation coefficient of r = .948. Pretty high correlation…</p></li>
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