<p>Hello,
Im a rising male junior, and i may be recruited to run at one of the ivies. im hoping yale, darmouth, and brown. i have a 4.0uw gpa going into junior year with honors classes, and will probably have taken 7APs by the end of my senior year. in general is a great SAT score "more valuable" to the eyes of ivy adcoms? or does a strong GPA in tough classes look better? i say this because i have been prepping for the SAT for a couple months.. and i took my first practice CR and Writing section... and scored 580, and 560 :( im really irritated and sad about these scores.. because i know they are not where they need to be. maybe i should give myself more time?
thank you for any advice or help</p>
<p>The way I look at it is that SAT’s will not get you into colleges, but they will keep you out. They are the #1 reason for rejection at highly selective schools. Reason being is that most everyone who applies has a 3.5 to 4.0 GPA, so there just isn’t much seperation between canidates. Another factor is that one of the criteria these schools are rated on is average SAT scores. They want to keep their high prestigous ranking becasue it keeps the alumni happy…and more likely to donate $ to their college! If you are a recruited athlete, the coach at that collge should be able to tell you what you need to get for them to get you admitted. I know that at least two of the Ivies a 1200 will get in a recruited athlete.</p>
<p>Keep in mind that some schools have grade inflation (on average, teachers give out high unweighted grades) or grade deflation (on average, teachers give out low unweighted grades). If admissions officers see your uw gpa alone, they can’t tell whether you worked hard to earn those grades or were able to get easy A’s in every class. SATs, on the other hand, are standardized. Every student is measured on the same criteria and difficulty.</p>
<p>Two thoughts.</p>
<p>First, there seems to be a disparity between your SAT scores and your Grades. If it is within your family’s means, you might benefit from one of the SAT prep courses. Kaplan, Princeton, etc.</p>
<p>Second, consider the ACT (given equal weight to the SAT). Some students do better on this test.</p>
<p>Your GPA is looked at in the context of your school. A large disparity between your SAT/Standardized test scores and GPA can raise questions about your high school’s rigor or curriculum, that’s where your school profile comes into use.</p>
<p>First, take the PSATs, and see how you do. Then, take the SATs, and see how you do. Then, depending on results, take some Subject SATs or APs (if you’ve been taking AP classes), and consider taking the ACT. That will provide colleges with an overall picture of who you are. You are obviously an industrious, dedicated student. If your scores all remain in that 500-600 range, you might be seen as an overachiever: this is not a bad thing, necessarily, but it probably rules out Ivy League schools. If you do considerably better on the APs and Subject SATs, it shows that you lack the general reasoning aptitude, but that you have mastered the material. If you perform poorly on those tests, it will say something about your school and/or teachers: you clearly did all that was required of you, but they failed to teach you all they were expected to. Don’t presume anything until you actually take the tests.</p>
<p>Kids with excellent SAT scores have acceptance rates in the range of 25-30% at schools with sub-10% acceptance rates. Kids with 4.0 have acceptance rates marginally more than the actual acceptance rate.</p>
<p>Maybe I’ve interpreted the statistics wrong, but I think the point is doing well on SATs “moves the needle” more so than SAT. The primary assumption wrong with this argument are that correlation does not indicate causation. And even if it is true that a good SAT score helps more it does not invalidate the importance of GPA relative to the SAT score, grade inflation has it such that most kids have extremely high GPAs… It’s impossible to inflate the score of a standardized test.</p>
<p>I’ve been researching and i feel like the ACT might be a better fit for me, what should i do? i have been prepping for the SAT, and i bought the official sat study guide… but should i start studying for the ACT now instead…? and buy the official ACT book? any other advice or knowledge about the ACT/its differences from the SAT would be great.</p>