<p>Here's my situation:
I moved to the US in my sophomore year. My first PSAT: 166. I know it's horrible but I had only been here for a month or so. Then, I tried to graduate early from my high school. I wanted to go to college after the end of my junior year. So, my counselor recommended me to take the SAT. I took it without prep in the March of my sophomore year. I had a 1870. CR 600, M 680, WR 590. Then I took 2 SAT subject tests in the June of my sophomore year. Math2 730 and Bio M 750. I also took the Bio and Calc AB AP tests. Bio 4 and Calc AB 5. My Junior year PSAT: 193. I retook the Math2 and took the US History subject tests this January. I had a 730 <em>again</em> and 720 respectively. And I just retook the SAT this March. The results were disheartening. 1950: CR 600, M 690, WR 660. The point is that I am an avid reader. I am in AP Language and Composition this year. I am doing pretty well in that class and everything. But for some reason I had the exact same CR score as last year. There is only an 80 point difference between this year and last year. I didn't prepare for either one of them. I just looked over direct hits. I thought that I had done very well on the CR part but I was plainly shocked by my score.
Now, I would be applying to colleges like HYPS, Johns Hopkins, etc. I come from a low-income family and I am a minority. Do I stand a chance in the admissions pool or do I have to retake it the third time? Or should I take the ACT? I will be taking the AP tests of Language, Calc BC, Chemistry, and Mechanics in May so I don't want to take the SAT in May.
Please, any help, suggestion, or constructive criticism would be deeply appreciated.</p>
<p>You’re like my clone lol.</p>
<p>
My first SAT sophomore score: 1680</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>I’m probably graduating early too next year, and I made exactly an 1870 on the SAT sophomore year [this year].</p>
<p>
1 out of 2 here</p>
<p>
Sorry, this thread is about you. Honestly I don’t know if you stand much of a chance with a 1950. 
I hate to tell you. You might try these schools and try the ACT, but you may want to look at other schools too, particularly those who give stats based aid.</p>
<p>It’s going to be very hard to get into HYPS with a 1950. The good news is, since you didn’t study either time you took the test, you should be able to raise that score significantly. Study some vocab, get the Blue Book and go through all the practice tests, review grammar and math if you need to, etc. If you can get your score to 2100+ your chances will be much better.</p>
<p>Thank you, aigiqinf and 112358. I understand that it is going to be very hard to get in to HYPS with these scores. And I also do not want to ‘excuse’ my scores because of my immigrant background. I will have to prepare then.
Any more people? I will appreciate to have more opinions and/or suggestions.</p>
<p>Bump… More opinions?</p>
<p>Being a URM will help. Opinions on what? You know your score isn’t good enough, so go study and take the ACT, too.</p>
<p>hey, dont let them put you down. Theres a guy on this forum who got into stanford with a 1700!.. and i have a 1700 aswell, i hope to improve in may but seriously, dont let them get you down</p>
<p>
And he was probably the only 1700 out of everyone admitted. Rare cases shouldn’t be expected or anticipated.</p>
<p>xSteven, I wanted an opinion on how to improve my CR score when I think that I am a good critical reader not for getting tips on how to get into HYPS with a substandard score. I do know that I do not have a great score and I do not expect a rare case or an ‘excuse’ for my score (please refer to my post). I just want to know how to improve my score specifically the CR one. Thank you.</p>
<p>In addition, I provided my whole academic background so that I can have specific suggestions on how to improve my score not general ones…</p>
<p>I would suggest going over some critical reading strategies. Because if you are really an “avid” reader then you should have tackled the reading section easily. You might need to polish your strategy, imho.</p>
<p>Why not take a prep course like Princeton Review?</p>
<p>I’m not sure on how colleges view graduating early, as it’s not really “taking advantage of your academic institution,” since you’re missing out on many senior-only classes. Unless of course you’re already in senior classes. I still think HYPS would like to see you finish with a traditional high school portfolio. You should e-mail an admissions officer at the schools you are interested in about your circumstances (If you do manage to pull off a 2100+ AND graduate early, that would make one helluva essay).</p>
<p>Borb, sorry, I forgot to mention. I ‘tried’ to graduate early but I changed my mind after I called different colleges who wanted me to take advantage of my academic institution (by taking more challenging courses) rather than graduating early. I don’t want to take Princeton Review because I only want to improve in one section the most: the Critical Reading one.</p>
<p>Unfortunately, critical reading is the hardest section to improve in. For starters do you miss sentence completions or just passage based questions?</p>
<p>I disagree. I took the SAT in January and got a 610 in reading. When I retook it in March, I got a 730. o_o. I thought cr was the easiest to improve in.</p>
<p>Being a URM will help but not as much. Why? Think about all the other well-qualified URMs applying.</p>
<p>spratleyj, I miss a lot of passage reading questions. The problem is that I always second guess myself. I am okay with the vocabulary. In fact, I hardly have any problem with it most of the times.
anhtimmy, That is exactly what I think. Therefore, I really want to improve my SAT score.</p>
<p>Well if your not missing any vocabulary, then I would recommend practicing different ways to read/answer the passages… but critical reading is hard to improve on so I really can’t predict how much this will help you. However, just practicing (and looking at the answers) should help you get a feel for it.</p>