No - you’ll be fine. Colleges are themselves trying to figure out how to absorb these scores. Your 35 is excellent and so is the 1500. Congrats!
1530 and 8/8/8 - if I’m aiming for Ivies should I retake? (I got a 780 in math and missed only 2 questions? This curve is pretty messed up.)
@shadyrainbows Congrats on the 1530. A retake seems completely unnecessary, especially given your perfect essay score!
As a professional SAT tutor, I’m writing this against my own self-interest, but we need to stop obsessing over “how good is good enough?” when it comes to SAT scores. Anything over 1500 is Ivy League material, period.
Does that mean that everyone who scores over 1500 is going to get into a top 30 school? No, of course not. Because SAT scores are only one aspect of your application, and because it’s extraordinarily hard to gain admission to an elite university.
The bottom line is that prospective colleges would rather see you practicing leadership in your community, for example, than see you improve your SAT score from a 1530 to a 1580.
@ivysource
a 1530 to a 1580 is a huge jump I think imo. I’m pretty sure some kids can do it, but when your score is already high, it’s much harder to improve. (personal bias)
The questions on the new SAT seem to be weighted because the scores and numbers wrong are not correlated at all and everyone seems to be getting different scores with the numbers they’ve gotten wrong.
@penngirlpending Thanks for sharing. At the top of the curve, the difference between a 1530 and a 1580 is usually about 3-5 questions. 4 more questions correct does not sound like a big deal, but I agree that it’s harder than one might think to go from 5 or 6 incorrect to 1 or 2 incorrect, out of 154 questions total. You could think of it as the difference between a “high A” and a “high A-plus.”
6 questions wrong = 96% correct.
2 questions wrong = 99% correct.
You could be right about the weighting! Or maybe people are just reading their score reports incorrectly / incorrectly reporting. We will find out soon as the March scores keep rolling in.
In one sense, the Writing questions are “worth more” than the Reading questions, because there are fewer Writing questions than Reading questions. A student’s performance on both sections is converted to a score on a scale of 10 to 40, and then those two scores are added and multiplied by 10 to yield the overall score. For example, a student who misses five Writing and five Reading questions would earn 37/40 on Reading but only 35/40 on Writing. So, (37 + 35) X 10 = 720. (Note: I am just using the scoring guide for one of the sample tests published by the College Board, but the actual score will certainly vary a bit from test to test.)
They’re not weighted. If they were, that would have been a major headline two years ago when the CB announced all the changes to the SAT. That would’ve been a huge change because CB has never done that before.
They’re not weighted.
The difference between reported scores and number wrong is that not everyone had the same form. There were different versions of the test in March, hence different levels of difficulty, different scales, different number of questions right/wrong to achieve certain scores.
@mmk2015 I think you nailed it right there. Different versions of the test = different scoring curves.
and @TexasTutor is also right as it pertains to the Reading and Writing Score. Writing questions are weighed more heavily than are Reading questions in the composite score, because there are fewer Writing questions on the SAT (44) than there are Reading questions (52).
When do school day sat scores come out?
1500 superscore {98th percentile} (800 reading {99th percentile}, 700 math {92nd percentile}) and 18 on the essay
I didn’t prepare too much–I’d guess it was between ten and fifteen hours–so I’m a little shocked about the reading thing. I got a 1450 (730 reading, 720 math) on the PSAT while concussed so I’m really confused about my math score. I’m a sophomore so idk whether I want to take it again.
Also, if you want to see what you missed in more depth, connect your khan academy account to collegeboard and it’ll tell you what you missed in the SAT practice section.
@mmk2015, ivysource is right on with his point about Sophomore SAT/ACT not figured into the equation for college admissions. Perhaps a few schools may look at it, but the primary focus is Junior/Senior years. True Story.
@mathwizard786 Looking at post #336, I think May 18.
Classicl16, where did you hear or read that?
Unless it’s explicitly stated on a college’s application or guidelines, I can’t see how that is true.
No disrespect to you, Ivysource or anyone, but just because someone says that’s what he or she thinks or “heard” doesn’t mean it’s true.
@mmk2015 It’s just common sense that colleges would want the most recent picture of the applicant possible. With another year of math and reading under your belt, you will almost assuredly do better on the SAT during your junior year than during your sophomore year, unless you get a 1500+ score as a sophomore and decide to quit while you are ahead. (Most colleges care only about your best score.)
If you only take the SAT your sophomore year, then yes, of course your sophomore score will be the only one considered, and most schools technically don’t specify that they want junior or senior year scores. But chances are that you’ll do better on the SAT your junior/senior year, barring any unforeseen academic setbacks, even if you don’t do any dedicated SAT preparation in the meantime.
Hi everyone…sorry if my post implied that the ACT is not a valued test, because of course it is and will be respected more than ever before this year because of the new SAT and all of the ambiguity that surrounds it.
I was just passing on advice to students that had strong SAT and ACT scores that it might not be a bad idea to send the SAT score as well (as another posted suggested) to validate the ACT. This was not random advice and without saying too much, my sources are very solid that there at least USED TO BE schools that preferred SAT. And for what it is worth, I do have a college admissions counseling background.
An adcom would never just say to someone who asked that they prefer one test over the other. I have asked the same question and got the same answer. However, I have some contacts that have closer relationships with real admissions officers and this is something they have passed on over the years…and the schools are in the Northeast.
So my advice to those of you with strong scores in both tests is to send both scores because it can’t hurt.
And just to be clear, a 35 is amazing and would absolutely never be the reason someone wasn’t admitted to a school.
When we are talking about the most elite schools, however, sometimes it can come down to some hairsplitting bit of information…and it can be completely subjective, depending on who is reading the app. These boards are designed to help each other out by passing on our advice (and that’s all it usually is, advice and not facts) that can help each other out. I would never post something completely random and out of nowhere, however, and my sources are good.
@chillkitty just for the record my other daughter could never get over an 1880 on the old SAT and switched to the ACT and got a 32 and we know many friends that had the same experience. It’s not that the test is easier, but for some reason it is easier for some students to prep for, based on what I have seen in my little corner of the world. And had my other daughter with the strong SAT scores not received her strong scores, I absolutely would have encouraged her to switch to the ACT. I have also heard of some students having an easier time with the SAT but for some reason, I have heard this much less frequently.
Also, I do think the schools look at the breakdown and more than a composite score on any test, but again, it all depends on the situation. A student with an 800 on math (36 ACT Math) and a 600 on CR (30 ACT Reading) might do better applying to an engineering program than someone with a 700 on both, and the person with the 700 on both might do better applying to a liberal arts program.
All you 35’s ACTers out there…if that’s all you are sending it is totally fine and absolutely amazing…if that point was misunderstood, I apologize. It’s just that if you also have a strong SAT, it is my opinion based on what I have gleaned from this arduous process over the years, it is my opinion that it cannot hurt to send both.
^That’s what I thought. You’re right about most likely doing better with more schooling.
I was just concerned with the inaccurate argument that colleges will ONLY take scores from junior/senior year. That’s a misleading argument.
@collegemomjam The 5 million dollar question is, what is a great SAT score now? The equivalent to a 35 composite score in the concordance is 1560 to 1590, and 34 equates to 1520 to 1580. This seems absurd, since SAT has such a large range of numbers to work with, there is a huge compression at the top.
I’m guessing to colleges will hate the new SAT for a while, until they can get their arms around it. There is a lot of bad press around this, see below from Washington post.
My point was to the obsessive test takers on this board who feel they have to take the SAT again when they have a 35 ACT… Don’t do it! A 35 will not block you anywhere and the SAT is too new. If you have a 1500, which equates to 33, and an actual 35 ACT, I’m not sure if I’d send the 1500. Depending on the subscores on each test. 1520 or higher, yes, send both.
@collegemomjam, I see your point about submitting both SAT And ACT scores IF both are comparatively strong. But as you yourself have pointed out there could be wild disparities between them for certain test takers. I bring this up because the most competitive schools require ALL test scores, so maybe submitting both tests might not work to the student’s advantage if one is significantly weaker.
It seems many schools require SAT subject tests on top of the SAT score but waive that requirement if you’re submitting the ACT. Maybe the ACT and its subscores have more validity in the eyes of admissions officers? (I’m not saying that I know that to be true. Just theorizing.)