<p>I am an oddity. I am a homeschooled HS senior (which is a complication in itself), but my main concern is my SAT score/s. I will be taking the SAT for the first and only time this year, so I don't have as good a gauge for estimating my scores as people who took it in their junior year also, but I have a pretty good idea of what's going to happen...</p>
<p>First, I've been through the SAT practice test twice, and both times received a perfect score in both the Critical Reading and Writing sections. I have absolutely no worries and no stress about anything involving either of the two English sections. I could do them in my sleep. I don't think I've ever received a grade other than A or A+ for an English assignment, public primary school included.</p>
<p>Math is... another story. I'm not terrible at math, exactly (I'm not good either, though; solid C-plus to B-minus average); I'm just terrible at most math tests. I am working on it, but I will be beyond surprised if my math score on the SAT is over 500. I could easily wind up with a totally bizarre trio of scores like 800/480/800. For subject tests I'm taking Literature (I'll go ahead and guess 750 minimum based on my grades and CR/W scores) and US History (I'm good in History, so let's say 700).</p>
<p>My HS GPA at the moment is 3.8. I've also been taking classes at a community college for the past year, and will have racked up 24 credit hours by application time with a 3.77 GPA. Not enough to make me a transfer student, of course, but enough to impress, I am hoping...?</p>
<p>Right now I'm looking mostly at liberal arts colleges (I want to major in English, if that makes a difference): primarily Occidental, Lawrence University, and Centre College. Columbia or UNC Chapel Hill would be my first choice(s), even though they're not LACs. But what I'm really wondering is how important that anomalous outlying runt of a math score is going to be at those artsy-fartsy liberal arts schools I want to get into. My English scores are going to be perfect or close to perfect; my Math scores are going to be light years behind. To what extent does me being a whiz in English matter if I can't square a hypotenuse to save my life?</p>
<p>Just as an aside: the literature subject test is very different like the CR/W sections of the SAT, so I wouldnt base how well you’ll do on that from those </p>
<p>We’re home schoolers as well. One of the beauties of home schooling is that you can manage your own time. Look up Xiggi’s guide to the SAT on this forum and follow his suggestions for studying, not so much to improve your math score, but to increase your math knowledge. You’re going to end up taking college math and you’ll need a strong foundation. Good luck.</p>
<p>The cramming is what I’m going for, and I’m on it. I’m just trying to plan for a worst-case scenario and have a decent list of schools together before the week before Christmas (which is when I’ll get the test scores, and that’ll be barely two weeks before the regular decision deadline for about half of the schools I hope to apply to). I’m wondering if there are any schools I’d actually like to attend that I could count as safeties or matches, assuming my Math score only improves modestly (and 480 would be a modest improvement). I’m interested in how total SAT score will be weighed against the Math score.</p>
<p>This is hard to predict. Each college is likely to address this disparity differently, but I suspect that the small LACs will give you less of a problem than larger schools like Columbia and UNC.</p>
<p>With such a disparity, I would suggest having a relatively long list of colleges to apply to. Find several more schools that you like, and maybe focus on schools that are especially good for writers. Kenyon College is one such school. It’s a notch better than Centre overall but is has a great literary tradition. Its literary journal, The Kenyon Review, is considered top notch.</p>
<p>Also you might consider one of the “Great Books” programs such as at St. Johns College in Annapolis, Maryland. This clearly works toward your strength as well. I doubt that St. John’s would reject you. It accepts 81% of applicants, but is a very rigorous school. I think you might enjoy it. <a href=“http://www.sjc.edu/”>http://www.sjc.edu/</a></p>
<p>Another possibility is Colorado College. With its “one course at a time” approach, you could minimize the impact that math has on other courses you take. When you do take math there, you can totally focus on it. Plus, it looks like their math requirements are not a burden. <a href=“http://www.coloradocollege.edu/”>http://www.coloradocollege.edu/</a></p>
<p>My daughter is exactly in your boat, @Evan111. She is a whiz at the reading and writing portions, but not as strong on her math. Ironically for her, she is considering a degree in biochem which will require a lot of math. Poor her. She did take the PSAT and do much better than we thought she’d do and she’s getting over 600 now on her practice math portion. Hopefully on Oct 11th she’ll do at least that well, but ya never know.
For her, we are concentrating on a few reach schools where she’d love to go, but ??? And some with higher acceptance rates. I second NROTCgrad’s suggestion above about St. John’s. We are still strongly considering them, especially if she eventually decides against a science major. That is a school that totally fascinates me!
I should mention she is also homeschooled - has been for her entire school life. She does well on math in general, but the test part just freezes her brain some! lol
Some of the schools on her list are the same as yours, specifically Lawrence and Centre. I would also add perhaps Earlham, Hendrix, Knox, and Sewanee.
Feel free to PM me if you want some more ideas.</p>
<p>Thanks for the replies, everyone! I think a one-course-at-a-time school would bore me to death, honestly, but I’ll definitely be looking at those too. St. John’s, Hendrix, and Earlham are going on my list for sure, and I’m thinking of trying the Bard Entrance Exam as well. @shellybean, if your daughter is making 600 on practice tests, then she is much smarter than me! I hope she does well on the real deal.</p>
<p>It’s an especially awkward position since even some test-optional schools outright REQUIRE test scores for homeschooled students, and nearly all seem to at least recommend them.</p>
<p>One important thing I’ve found in the past few weeks is that it’s not necessarily true that acceptance rate = selectivity. Some schools with low acceptance rates have middle-of-the-road-to-low SAT scores for accepted students, simply because more average-scoring students apply than do excellent students, and some have high acceptance rates but also high test scores, because they attract primarily overachievers. Ivy statistics tend to give the impression that test scores and acceptance rates can be inversely correlated across the board, but that isn’t really true except for the very high-prestige colleges. Just because a school has a 65% acceptance rate (or whatever), you can’t immediately assume that any given applicant has a 65% chance of being accepted.</p>
<p>I think just from reading your posts you would be an asset to any college. I applaud you for extrapolating the above, for example, from your research. It is very important, as you point out, to look at college data sets, test scores, etc, and see exactly where “selectivity” lines up with scores. There are so many factors that go into selection. I wish you luck and success on your choices. Keep us posted!!!</p>
<p>OP, my D was in a similar situation with respect to her SATs: near perfect CR and W, low/marginal M scores. It makes it somewhat difficult to gauge acceptances. She fared well in the admissions process, but she wasn’t interested in Ivies and super reachy schools, partly because she needed merit aid. She is currently studying English at Sewanee and loves it! They have an excellent English department, small discussion based classes, extremely accessible profs, and well regarded publications. I highly recommend that you check it out. Good luck!</p>
<p>You’ll likely do better at LACs with a holistic approach. You should apply widely, from Kenyon and Hampshire to Sewanee and Wooster to Guilford and Knox…</p>
<p>Thanks for the replies, everyone! I have quite a few LACs I think I have a reasonably good chance of getting into, so for SAT purposes I’ve prioritized those (I’m short on cash so can’t shell out money to send scores to 10+ colleges). Some of them are SAT-optional, allowing me to bypass the math question entirely, but some of the “SAT-optional” schools actually require scores for homeschoolers, meaning I’ve cut a few from my list. This is my list so far. Any thoughts?</p>
<p>Bard (Entrance exam)
Centre
Columbia
Connecticut
Denison
Dickinson
Earlham
Hendrix
Lawrence (planning on ED without SAT scores but with SAT Subject scores)
Lycoming
Occidental
Sewanee
St. John’s College
UNC Asheville
UNC Chapel Hill
Wheaton</p>
<p>Looks like an excellent list to me. A couple of reaches, a couple of safeties, and an overall great list. The list is long, at 16. So no need to add to it. Next thing you might want to do is prioritize the list. Then apply to them in order of preference (although you might need to adjst for any deadlines). That way if you start to run out of cash for application fees, you will have your favorites covered. </p>
<p>@overtheedge Did your daughter submit her scores to the test-optional schools she applied to (such as Sewanee)? My daughter is in a similar situation. 730+ on CR and W but 480 on Math. Thanks.</p>
<p>@fortnight - Yes. Sewanee was the only test optional school to which she applied. Her intended major is English and both her CR and W scores were very high so we thought they might overlook a less than stellar M score. Also, her combined score was still pretty good (above the 75% of accepted students) so we figured her scores would help her. </p>
<p>Is your D taking the test again? It would be great (I know easier said than done) if she can pull that M score into the 500s. I’d look at the combined score range for each school and if your D is above the 50%, I’d send the scores. If she’s in the 25-50% range I’d consider the strength of her other stats in making the decision. </p>
<p>Thanks @overtheedge.Good to know. My daughter has high GPA and rigorous course load and her SAT is at the high end of their middle 50% for the Class of 2017 SAT combined, so I guess she should submit. Yes, she did take the Oct. SAT and we’re hoping her Math came up into the 500s Like your daughter, she is an English (or History) student so the Math may not be as important.Thank you and hope your daughter is enjoying Sewanee.</p>
Like your daughter, she is an English (or History) student so the Math may not be as important.Thank you and hope your daughter is enjoying Sewanee.</p>