Hello! I am a senior applying to colleges at the moment, and I took the ACT twice and the SAT once. My early admissions school is Cornell CALS and I’m looking to go into general biology with the intention is specializing later on. My test results are shown below:
SAT no writing (March 2019)
Composite: 1420
Math: 710
English: 710
ACT w/writing (September 2019)
Composite: 32
Math: 30
Science: 33
English: 35
Reading: 34
Writing: 9
ACT2 no writing (April 2019)
Composite: 33
Math: 29
Science: 28
English: 35
Reading: 36
I believe that I meet Cornell’s 50% percentile with my ACT score, but I am below average on the SAT score. I am worried that I am not taking full advantage of Cornell’s superscoring of the SAT (not offered for the ACT). I am also worried that my single writing score across all tests is poor and that the lack of any additional writing sections will hurt my application. Lastly, I am concerned that my SAT composite score reflects poorly on me (Because I have heard that the SAT is supposed to be more college-oriented testing v.s. the ACT which tests more high-school based ideas.). If I were to retake the SAT test in December 2019, I would not meet the early admissions deadline. At that point, I would be taking the SAT for my other applications and be sending my results to Cornell in some kind of “continued letter of interest”. If you can, please offer some advice, thank you!
I assume you are very busy with school and college applications right now, and that will persist for the next several months…which is why I hesitate to recommend that you spend time studying for the SAT at the possible expense of your grades, applications, essays, quality of life, etc.
Looking at the Class of 2023 profile your EBRW of 710 is just below the 50% mark, 710 math below 25%ile. ACT composite is also below 50% mark (which is 34), and they will look at your subscores…math of 30 concords with an SAT of 700, so SAT is actually better on this measure. The good news is that a 9 in writing is fine, and the essay is optional for Cornell anyway. http://irp.dpb.cornell.edu/university-factbook/undergraduate-admissions
I don’t know anything else about the various components of your application, or their relative strengths, or if you have any hooks, but your standardized test scores probably aren’t strengthening your application unless you are a URM and/or low SES.
Only you, along with input from your GC and parents, can assess the overall strength of your app with or without a better SAT and whether or not it makes sense to prepare to take a December test, all the while keeping your grades high, writing solid essays for all of your applications, participating in ECs, and maintaining your mental health.
Good luck.
Your ACT composite scores appear to be reversed.
Your ACT superscore is 34 (33.5 to be precise).
Unless Cornell is way out of the ordinary, they will only use one set of standardized scores. If your ACT scores are higher (single sitting or superscored) then your SAT scores are irrelevant.
Unless you have a reason to believe you would improve SAT scores much more than ACT scores, I’d take the ACT again, if you really want to invest the time in another round of testing.
I’m curious where you “heard” Those ideas about the tests. The two tests are very similar.
Writing scores mean very little these days, if anything.
Oh I didn’t catch that, whoops. Thank you for the advice! At this point, I don’t really think it would be beneficial to retest so I guess I won’t be retesting.
My HL English and SL Math teachers last year had told the class that they would recommend taking the SAT over the ACT because colleges valued the SAT more. The reasoning given was that the SAT was more representative of critical thinking and “college-level” learning while the ACT assessed pure memorization and “high-school level” learning. Although now that I think about it, this is a vague statement with no elaboration and I don’t believe that my experiences on the tests would really support this idea.