Well, if I may briefly summarize what the sentiment appears to be on this thread:
1700 is not a good, or remotely competitive score, and neither is 1940.
A showing in the 2100+ range may get an applicant a read, or it may not. Even with two scores above that mark, a read is likely to be perfunctory.
Chances are about 0.1% right now, but it might be worth applying with a higher score, despite #2.
Thanks for the advice, everyone. Hopefully Yale sees something special in this applicant, but if they don’t my (admittedly biased) view is that it’ll be their loss.
This highlights for me the cruelty of boiling down applicants to a single number. Having seen what my friend’s gone through in preparation for his third SAT, I can really appreciate not having to take the test again.
I disagree with everything everyone says. But, our opinions don’t really matter, do they? I’m in a similar boat as your friend and will be applying to near equal if not equal caliber schools anyway. Yes, I will probably get rejected, and there’s a 93% chance your friend will too- but that shouldn’t stop him from trying!
The cruel reality is that schools like Yale look for “perfect” accadimics first (go and look at the kids who posted their results in the past if you doubt me) before looking at anything else…and they can afford to do that!
I am not just saying that as I had experienced that through my own kid this last year! I did not wish to become personal in my previous posts here, but since you are in denial I let you know that my daughter had a 2370 score in her first attempt (and other almost perfect stats and ECs good enough for which she got 15k private award) and still was rejected by this same school! So go figure!
If his SAT do improve he would be better off applying to schools that superscore. Cornell admissions officer told the audience that the supercores are transposed onto a cover sheet and the person reading your application doesn’t even see your other scores.
@NotVerySmart, While it is highly unlikely that your friend with be accepted at Yale, your stats suggest otherwise. Here’s hoping you seriously consider Yale and good luck (I am Yale Class of 2019).