Son has a competitive score on SATs but am going back and forth on submitting. Score is slightly below average for Ivy league. Thoughts?
Submit If above the median per each school’s Common Data Set. Don’t submit if below 25th percentile.
If it falls into 25-50, then the answer is “it depends.”
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I generally agree with @skieurope, but IMO the “it depends” range might be a broader than the 25-50% range. If your son’s high school has competent college counseling they may be able to give him a better idea of how his scores compare to past applicants from his school/ demographic, and whether including his scores would improve his overall application, or not.
It may turn out that it makes sense for him to submit scores to some schools but not others.
Kind of what I was thinking with your last statement!!
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I typically recommend submitting if it’s at or above the midpoint of the CDS SAT data (question C9). Use the most recent CDS, not any data coming from the 21-22 admissions cycle, as that will be skewed by test optional policies.
This will vary by school, iirc from ~1470 at Cornell to ~1510 at H/Y/P.
(If you search Princeton first, they conveniently link to the other Ivy League schools and what I assume they think are their peers - Caltech, MIT, Stanford, WashStL).
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Scores are pretty meaningless after 1450. It boils down to the rest of the package for ivy league schools and likes.
According to Duke AO, if your score is below 25th percentile, do not submit it.
According to Dartmouth DOA, I instruct readers not to penalize students for missing test scores.
Hence, poor score = do not submit.