<p>I am going into my senior year, I live in Australia and graduate in November 2015 and will be starting university in fall 2016. I have decided that the SAT test will be the best for me. So far I have taken one SAT practice test and have done no study/revision. The curriculum in Australia is completely different and the things on the SAT I have never learnt. I don't remember what score on the practice SAT I got but it was the equivalent to about a 15 on the ACT. I have about a year to get ready for the SAT and my dream school is somewhere like the university of Southern California or Stanford, so basically I need about a 31-33 ACT wise or 2000+ on the ACT. Do you think it is possible to achieve such a high score since I did so badly on the practice test? My main problem was the math section, which I found extremely hard and over half of I didn't answer, I'll also admit that I didn't put 100% into the practice. I'm planning on purchasing some SAT books as summer break starts next week which will give me a lot of time to prepare. Any advice or help would be greatly appreciated and also any tips of how I could learn the content as SAT tutors are hard to find here and extremely expensive. </p>
<p>Buy the college board official guide and work through the practice test during this summer holidays. Recommend the books on SAT grammar and critical reading by Erica Meltzer. But seriously, if you got the ACT equivalent of a 15 it’s gonna be tough. Not to mention the fact that they look at your extracurriculars, awards etc. unlike the Universities here in Australia. Suggest you forget about Stanford unless you manage to boost your academic scores higher and have an impressive resume. Aim for an ATAR of 97 plus for USC and for Stanford its like an 99.80 minimum. If you’re a recruited athlete however, it is an entirely different story. </p>
<p>You do realise that for me to get a 99.80 ATAR score would make me pretty much the smartest person in my state… I could get into Harvard with those kinds of marks. </p>
<p>ATAR of 99.95 is the maximum actually, and Stanford is on the same level as Harvard in terms of admission difficulty. Just don’t think you realize the level of difficulty to get into elite US unis that’s all. And 99.80 ATAR score IS NOT the smartest person in the state seriously, my school gets a few of 99.80+ each year FYI, how do you think the Melbourne university medical school students get in? A 99.90 puts you in the top 500 in Australia so I don’t know where you got 99.80 is smartest in your state from. A vice chancellors scholarship from the university of Melbourne is a 99.90 minimum requirement just to apply. Look up the key word “Australian” on college confidential and you can see the past advice from Aussies that have got into Harvard. Most of them are Olympians in physics, chemistry, Maths etc. </p>