my math sat (800) is always above the average for most schools and my verbal (600) is below the average for most schools so would that balance it out? …also im gonna take it again in oct to try to boost my verbal but i dont know if that will happen
<p>That happened to my D's friend. He got into Northwestern, was waitlisted at Duke, rejected Stanford, got great scholarships at his state honors college. He had great grades, if you write a winner essay you should be fine depending on which schools you apply to. Of course an engineering program would not care as much about verbal as math scores.</p>
<p>Its much easier to do better on math. Also, seeing as many college freshmen dont have basic writing skills, admissions officers generally pay more attention to verbal scores.</p>
<p>That said, if you have a legitimate excuse for having a lower verbal score (ie you are foreign born, english is not spoken in your home, etc), they will cut you some slack.</p>
<p>It depends on the school - MIT & Cal Tech care much more about math, for obvious reasons, and their students Verbal scores are generally much lower.
LACs generally consider them more equally.
Some also consider your prospective major (if you're gonna major in English, a lower math won't kill your app, etc).
Prepster has a good point, about adcoms worrying that frosh won't have basic writing skills. However, if you are a competitive applicant at a top school, the adcom won't say "oh they might not have basic writing skills." if you didn't have basic writing skills, you wouldn't be a competitive app at a good school. So don't worry about that.
Also, keep in mind that 1400 is an excellent score.</p>
<p>Jen, what are you talking about?</p>
<p>It's true that MIT and CalTech students generally have perfect or almost perfect math scores, but whats extraordinary is that their verbal scores are also on par with most selective colleges, if not better</p>
<p>Mid 50% SAT VERBAL SCORES
MIT- 680-760
CalTech- 700-770</p>
<p>I dont think thats much lower at all:)</p>
<p>i also got a 720 on writing and im a good writer</p>
<p>I think in your case it is more important to look at the total score, 1400. I don't think it looks any worse than a 700M/700V, although some will argue that it does. The bottom line is there is not much a difference...but of course try to get that verbal up.</p>
<p>For the record, I got 790M/600R in March & 800M/740R in June w/o too much prep. So it is possible. :)</p>
<p>iwantfood - notice that i didn't say the Verbal scores @ MIT/Cal Tech are lower than the national average or anything like that, rather they are lower than Math scores at MIT/Cal Tech.</p>
<p>jen: you said, '....and their students Verbal scores are generally much lower.' </p>
<p>MIT M:680 - 760
MIT V:730 - 800</p>
<p>I don't think 40 points constitutes much lower. Besides, if you look at engineering for any other top college, even if its not a tech school, you are going to see a little higher math than verbal.</p>
<p>Jen, they are right. You need to be careful what you post.</p>
<p>In principle Jen is right -- an 800M/700V is prob. fine for MIT whereas a 700M/800V could spell major trouble. But the bottom line is, which the other posters have pointed out, that a 600 in anything (including verbal) makes it difficult at all top schools, whether it be a tech school or not.</p>
<p>Also, MIT & caltech seem to value test scores (including verbal) more in general than the Ivies.</p>
<p>I need to be careful what i post? Excuse me. confidential has shown that the averages are about 40 points lower for Verbal than Math. That is a significant difference, and that is all i was saying.</p>
<p>Thank you stambliary, i'm glad you understood my point. :)</p>
<p>I really don't think math makes up for verbal. Math and verbal are separate sections. So if you do well on math, the adcoms will think that your math is 'relatively' - note that I said relatively- strong. At an engineering or math oriented school they will be forgiving but at a school that values a liberal arts education they probably won't be that forgiving. Besides raising your verbal score isn't as hard as you think. For me I had a M 800 V 650 in Jan. but this June the situation rather changed. I got a M 760 V 770. So my point is with practice you can definitely improve your score. Also the verbal curve is much better than the math curve.</p>
<p>Admissions for engineers is different from regular admissions in two ways: 1) the engineering faculty is more involved and it isn't just up to the adcoms 2) they put greater emphasis on the SAT I Math and SAT II Math IC/IIC scores. Think of it like applying to Julliard School of Music. Your SAT scores aren't going to matter as much as how well you play the trumpet.</p>
<p>If you are are applying as an engineering major, the verbal won't hurt you too much. MIT and Caltech are extreme examples. They are so selective that they can afford to care about everything.</p>