<p>dartmouth is going to be my uuuuuber reach school. while other people on CC are applying to HYPSM, i consider dartmouth my highest reach. though it's my highest reach, i still want to give myself a bit of a chance/hope.</p>
<p>however, i'm really concerned about my SAT CR score. i scored a 650, which is below the 25th percentile for dartmouth. my math score is a 780 though. and i think everything else is pretty much ok. i have a great gpa, few EC's but leadership in all of them.</p>
<p>so, an SAT score below the 25th percentile without any special circumstances.. yikes? or not yikes?</p>
<p>thanks in advance for any responses!</p>
<p>if you can, i would recommend taking the SAT again focusing on the CR and bring up to 700...you want to eliminate any possible downsides of your app, especially for an ivy. but that doesn't always mean that perfect score will get you in...other factors come into play as well (recs, gpa, etc.). Another suggestion: since you seem more like a math person, why not taking the ACT? the english and reading section in the ACT are very straightforward...no tricks unlike SAT.</p>
<p>Agree with Junebuggy...</p>
<p>what about my scores- 700CR, 720 writing, 780 math. Will those be problematic? I really want to go to Dartmouth, so if I need to take them over, I will.</p>
<p>like I said before, perfect score doesn't guarantee an admission. I personally think you shouldn't retake (and if you have taken more than twice already, i don't recommend retaking it). 1480/2200 score is decent; I think you should work on your essays and recs and maintain a good gpa (USUALLY gpa trumps sat scores)</p>
<p>Yes I know that, and my other stuff is fine; I just wanted to make sure those scores wouldn't keep me out.</p>
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<p>I disagree. They are supposedly considered equally, but if anything, SAT's count for more. You can't compare GPA's between schools; you can barely compare class rank between schools. SAT's on the other hand, clearly show that one student is better than another (at taking SAT's), because it's standardized.</p>
<p>I agree with sneamia. There are plenty of people with straight A's, but people with great SATs are much rarer because they are the product of ability, not hard work and ability and all the other crap that goes into grades.
Also, SATs are the only thing we all have in common on our resumes, really, because classes and GPAs vary so much from school to school.</p>
<p>well my uncle is one of the admission office at harvard and he stressed to me that USUALLY good grade in hard courses (ph btw, the colleges know which high school you are coming from and your high school send its course catelog to tell which courses are harder) is more important than SAT because SAT doesn't show one's intelligence, academic curiosity and progress. And I'm stressing USUALLY because in some colleges, unlike ivies, they like perfect SAT scores over good gpa. i hope this helped :)</p>
<p>At some high schools (including the one i graduated from) grade inflation runs rampant and grades mean next to nothing.</p>
<p>At top schools (like Andover, Exeter, Milton, etc) the schools are well known and grades matter more. But for the majority of schools, scores are the validating factor. I think a 1480 is a solid score and puts you in the running, but a 1550 is much better. If have a shot to improve your scores I would do it. You only get to go to college once.</p>