<p>S1 has taken the SAT in October and got 2280 total score. He would rather not take it again, and sees no reason to take ACT at all. He's a junior and had no preparation other than looking at a book about the SAT. We can not afford expensive preps anyway.
I agree that this is a good score, although he has done better on the PSAT (235)
I do think he needs to put his energies towards better GPA, and EC</p>
<p>I'm wondering about others' experience, especially veterans of the process (parents with kids already in college, others who have been through college admissions recently)</p>
<p>Would anyone hold it against you that you only took the SAT once?</p>
<p>No. It looks better than taking the SAT 5+ times.</p>
<p>2280 is a very good score and if your son is happy with it, then he should just stick with it. Although I feel like he has the potential to score 2350+, it’s ultimately up to him. 2280 is a great score for his first SAT.</p>
<p>Let him go. DD2 had the same score the first time and made it into very good schools. Looks like he’ll be NMSF so go to the financial aid forum and look at Keilexandra’s thread on NMF Scholarships. You can see schools where he can get great merit aid.</p>
<p>Nope. But, no one will give you any bonus points for only taking the test once. 2280 is an awesome score. But in this game, called college admissions, higher is ALWAYS better. And, with score choice, there is no reason not to retake. Prep courses are not necessary. A few hours of prep at home following the xiggi method (found on cc) during the summer, working on his problem areas could yield great benefits. One just never knows what scores will earn that full ride to xx Uni.</p>
<p>Your thoughtful responses, all of them, were so appriciated. </p>
<p>I guess I’ll wait until next fall and see if he decides it’s worth trying again. I know there’s a point where a high score is high enough not to bother anymore- especially when a perfect score is probably out of reach. Not being in Admissions, I have no idea where that “high enough so that more does not matter” is.</p>
<p>Actually, I would have him take the test once more. There are several benefits to taking the test twice: for instance, 55% of the test takers improve their score. Obviously your S1 has the potential to do better (2350 compared to 2280, while it may not seem like a huge difference, adversely affects chances at top tier colleges). Also, if your son scores higher or near 2280 the second time, it demonstrates to colleges that the first 2280 was not a fluke.</p>
<p>“especially when a perfect score is probably out of reach.”- your son scored a 235 on the PSAT, he probably missed one or two questions. A perfect score of 2400 is definitely within reach.</p>
<p>one other consideration is the colleges he is targeting. If he is targeting instate public U, a 2280 is good for all of them. If he is targeting Ivy-level colleges, a 2280 is great there too. If he want a full ride from somewhere, higher might help.</p>
<p>I would take it one more time the fall of senior year. If he had a 235 on the PSAT, he has the potential to score much higher even without studying, especially if he knows now that he already has a great score in his pocket so there’s much less pressure - a lot of times it’s even a matter of luck. But a 2280 is a perfectly awesome score by itself.</p>
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<p>Higher is better, but after a certain point it really doesn’t matter anymore. An admission officer recently pointed this out in the CC MIT forum after people were arguing why a lot of applicants with great stats were rejected. I think the following is super helpful for someone who’s thinking about retaking the SAT:</p>
<p>Well yes and no. I can assure you that, if MIT published its data, that 2300 scorers would be accepted at a MUCH higher rate than 2100 scorers. Indeed, take a look at schools like Brown and Amherst as examples of highly selective schools that publish admissions by test score bracket. The cutoffs are significant.</p>
<p>But yes, once you clear 2250, it doesn’t much matter for admissions. But a 2300+ might matter for scholarships, particularly full rides where the competition is brutal. In any event, with score choice and a wonderful score, and the fact that colleges mix and match SAT scores, i.e., superscore to combine the highest individual scores, there is absolutely no reason not to retake. The OP might not clear 2280 on the retry, but could hit 2350 superscored!</p>
<p>Note, even MIT even encourages retakes bcos it is one of the few selective colleges that even superscores the ACT.</p>
<p>Folks have been so helpful, that I felt I should give an update regardless if anyone reads it. It’s the writer in me, urging to close the story.</p>
<p>DS took the SAT again in October. Again, he made no special preparations and did not study for it. Yet again he told me it was “easy.”</p>
<p>I promised him not to look at his score before he does, so I won’t know until late today, but will update. I only hope it was the right descision to re-take.</p>