Hi all,
So I decided to retake the SAT this January. Many people advised me against it because would be the fourth time that I had taken the test, and my scores probably wouldn’t improve much, but I decided it couldn’t hurt, and I really wanted to put in the work to get a better score.
Long story short, all the work paid off and I raised my score from a 2230 superscore (2210 single sitting), to a 2380 single sitting this time!!
However, now I am unsure what the best thing to do at this point is. I just talked to my college counselor, and she has agreed to send the scores via email as a “placeholder” until I send in the actual scores, which I will do later today.
My main questions are: should I send the scores with ‘rush shipping’ since colleges are in the decision making process? and will this improvement overshadow the fact that I took 4 SATs to get there, even though it IS a single sitting score, not a superscore. Finally, has anyone admitted to Harvard gone through a similar process where a last minute update helped their application? Thanks! Any help would be great!
Congratulations on your great score! I think you should use “rush shipping” or whatever will get the official scores to your schools the fastest. That said, for future applicants, taking the SAT (or ACT) more than two times can be viewed by admissions committees as a negative. Doing so makes you appear too concerned with scores and too perfectionistic. SAT II (subject) tests should only be taken once, regardless of the score. Test scores are important, but once you’re in an acceptable range, they don’t matter. What matters is how you spend your time on things other than test prep/test taking.
I’m sure hundreds of students over the years – such as Intel finalists who are notified at the beginning of March – have updated Admissions at the last minute, and their update did indeed help their application.
The MORE relevant question for you: Has anyone sent in a better 4th SAT score as a last minute update and had it help their application? I’m not sure anyone can answer that question.
Personally, I feel two ways about this:
(a) You took the test and did better, so congratulations! You can certainly pay for rush shipping, but I don’t think it’s necessary. What you should do is FAX an update letter advising Admissions of your higher scores and telling them to be on the lookout for them.
(b) As @Planner said, by sending in a fourth set of test scores – even though the scores are higher – you are telling Admissions that you are a test obsessed drone and perfectionist, who, if admitted to Harvard, might have a difficult time there if they got a grade of anything less than perfect. It also demonstrates to Admissions that you don’t understand what Harvard is looking for. I’m not sure if those things will actually be a positive for you.
thanks @gibby ! yeah I realize that it might come off as if I’m a perfectionist, but I’m not at all and I think my application as a whole speaks to that, so I’m not too worried. I think I’m going to end up sending in the scores, along with a small update letter. My counselor has sent the scores unofficially to all of my colleges, so I don’t think I need to do rush shipping. Thanks a lot for the detailed response, it’s very helpful!
Taking it again is ridiculous, Adcoms will see you took it four times and won’t be impressed. My daughter worked in admissions at an elite school, that is what she told me.
I think you should do as Gibby first suggests and send a fax with the scores - also telling them that the official scores are on their way. Very few people (a fraction of one percent) achieve a singe sitting score of near perfection so it is quite an accomplishment.
I don’t agree at all that you will be penalized for being “test obsessed”. If you were getting in the 2300’s and retaking it, I would agree but since your highest one-sitting score was 2210 before this, one could argue that you had the confidence and determination to believe you could do much better and you did.
If Harvard was seriously considering accepting you, they would want to know this piece of information because they like their acceptance statistics to be high just as much as the next elite school. Good luck with everything!
It will not change your chances at all. But since you already took it, send it. Pay the extra fine to get it there quicker. Give a heads up to admissions.
Thanks a lot guys! @CaliCash I’ve definitely heard that once your at around 2200+ its all the same to Harvard and other similar schools, but wouldn’t raising my single sitting score by 170 points and my superscore by 150 change my chances at least somewhat? every little bit is key with a school like this!
@Falcon1 thanks for the positive input! I ended up sending the score out to all the schools I’ve applied to, and I’m planning to write out an update as well to contextualize them.
I used to be of the school that, at some point, the SAT scores were “good enough” and other factors controlled the admissions decision - e.g., that the difference between a 2210 and a 2380 really had no meaningful impact on the chances of admission to a top school. But when my son was applying to Harvard a few years back, I stumbled across a thread from a student who got a 2360 and was wondering whether he should retake to try to get a 2400. On that one, I still think the answer is no, but when I dug into the statistics (to the extent they were available on the websites of some “elite” colleges), I found that there was a positive correlation between increased SAT scores and increased admissions rates that continued well beyond the 2200, or even the 2300, thresholds. Here’s a link to page 15 of that thread, where I tried to compile what I had found in a single post: http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/sat-preparation/895986-retake-2360-p15.html
Now whether correlation equals causation is anyone’s guess. But the evidence I found (admittedly a few years old now) does suggest that the admissions reps’ protestations that a difference of 100 points is meaningless may be a little disingenuous. And the notion that sending the higher scores could somehow hurt an applicant strikes me as preposterous.
In any event, @soccerlover17, it sounds like you’ve done what you should be doing in terms of updating your schools on the new scores. Congratulations and good luck!
What is MORE interesting to me than the SAT scores is the fact that
That would seem to indicate that Harvard prefers students who are at the top of their class in high school, regardless of their SAT score, or places less emphasis on their SAT score than their transcript.
There is no conflict between the idea that Harvard places more emphasis on GPA than on SAT score, and the idea that, in terms of SAT score, higher is better, and that there is no “threshold,” (or, at least, that threshold is higher than 2200). In the mythical match up of two applicants, both with the same or very similar GPA, and overall similar applications, the one with the higher SAT score may have the advantage. Thus, we see a stronger correlation between GPA and admission, but still a positive correlation between >2200 (or whatever score one believes to be the threshold) scores and admission.
In other words, beyond some threshold, it may very well be that the value of a higher SAT score is diminished, especially in comparison to GPA, but not that higher scores beyond the threshold have no value at all.
The very fact that Harvard accepts superscoring tells me that Harvard is quite interested in SAT scores, and is very interested in seeing just how high someone scores, even across multiple tests. They’re interested in what the student can do on his or her best day.
I think the student who takes the test four times and sees little change may be viewed as a bit obsessive. Or the student who starts out with a score above 2300 and re-tests may be viewed as too score-focused. But the student who takes it several times and advances by 170 points may be viewed as someone who had enough of a sense of self to know he or she could do better, and then did.
Not everyone experiences standardized tests the same way. Some folks seem almost genetically-programmed to take them. Others don’t do their best the first time or two out. I think Harvard is always interested in asking two questions: How much has this student achieved? How much is he capable of achieving? Taking the SAT multiple times can help give some insight into the second question.
^^ Strongly disagree. Perhaps it won’t help much at Harvard where the OP has already been deferred but it should improve their chances at the other schools where they applied, if only marginally.
@notjoe: I would argue that by allowing students to superscore the SAT, Admissions is trying to increase the number of students who fall within their range, thereby increasing their overall application numbers, which helps drive down their acceptance rate. It’s part of the game colleges everywhere play to lower their acceptance rate data. Given that Admissions Officers probably spend less than 10 seconds looking at a student’s SAT score, a student’s score (one sitting or superscore) is more like a check-list item . . . and then it’s on to the other parts of the application which seem to matter more: teacher recommendations, secondary school report, essays, EC’s, and the general sense of “character” that those elements display.
@gibby, your theory would be easier to accept if there weren’t a fairly clear correlation between admission and higher test scores above the so-called threshold level.
^^ @notjoe: You and I agree that there seems to be a threshold level for SAT scores. In post #10, you called it 2200. My number is 2100 (700 on each section). IMHO, once an applicant crosses that threshold number, the “SAT box” is checked and other factors come into play. Factors such as “character” become more important than a 2300 or 2400 on an SAT – which is why students with those scores are rejected every year. A higher SAT score doesn’t make a student a better, stronger applicant unless it’s ALSO coupled with a great transcript with demonstrated course rigor, thought provoking essays, stellar teacher recommendations, interesting EC etc. IMHO though, a student who has a great transcript, essays, teacher recommendations, and EC doesn’t need to retake the SAT 4 times to get an almost perfect score, like the OP did.
I picked 2200 at random. I’m agnostic as to what the threshold might be. As well, I suspect it varies from population to population, and is influenced in ways that Harvard isn’t telling, and to the degree that there is a threshold at all, it is embedded into a larger context.
But the question from the poster was whether a 2380 is better than a 2230 superscore, whether it buys him anything in the admissions process. Most posters seem to suggest, or explicitly say, “no.” In other words, once you get past the threshold, it doesn’t matter.
I disagree. I think that once one gets past the threshold, higher scores become less important than other factors, but on balance, a 2380 is better than a 2230. Is it going to vault the kid with the mediocre essay over the kid with the world-beating essay? I doubt it. But will it be a factor when the choices are less clear? Quite possibly so.
@gibby Would you agree that all else being equal, the unhooked kid with a 2380 would get picked over the unhooked kid with a 2100? If so, then it must be a differentiating factor.
