I’m a long time observer on cc and have already seen several children through the admissions process. I would appreciate any insight on the following: S should be a strong admissions candidate (excellent student, lots of APs, rigorous high school, good ecs). He has taken the new SAT twice–once in school and once on a Saturday administration. He received what I consider to be excellent scores–1500 and 1480 (school-administered). Writing score, however, was 16. He received a good amount of tutoring and diligently prepped for these tests. As further background, ACT was 32 with a writing of 26. He’s set his sights on an ivy, understanding that even as a legacy it’s a very tough road. Should he retake the SAT with writing?
Which test did he prefer - ACT or SAT? Those are good scores- not sure how much better he will do since he’s already done the tutoring and prep. The writing is not important. I would be inclined to say he’s done - and to send both the 1500 / 16 and 32 / 26.
Thanks for the reply. My instinct is also that he’s done. An admissions counselor I spoke with this afternoon also advised that a 4 or 5 on the AP Literature and Comp might compensate (somewhat) for the weaker writing scores.
Sorry if I seem a bit intrusive, but may I ask what ethnicity your son is?
non-Hispanic/white
Do you means that he got a 16 on the New SAT essay or the the Writing section. What was the EBRW score breakdown between EBR and WL?
16 on essay. EBRW was 740 (37 reading, 37 writing and language)
@blackwalnut11 My D1 just got a 1510 (760R, 750 M) this March. She said she ran out of time on the math and had to guess for the last 3…so there’s room for improvement with some practice. So maybe her math goes up 20-30? Is it worth it? She’ll probably retake in October. She’s also thinking Ivies…Brown, Penn, etc.
Did she take the ACT @bucketDad?
Why retake a 1510? That’s 99th percentile. Waste of time and money chasing perfection, imo.
@suzyQ7 She didn’t take the ACT. Kaplan offered a practice ACT last year, she took it and did fine. With the PSATs coming up, we made a somewhat conscious decision to just focus on one test format…new SAT. We didn’t want to drive her crazy with having to prep for multiple formats.
@itsgettingreal17 I hear you. However, if the CB concordance is accurate and the curve at the top is really that steep, an improvement of 20-30 points could be meaningful for someone applying to Duke, Brown, etc. If the concordance isn’t accurate (and that’s a real possibility), then I would agree…retaking would be a waste of time.
@bucketdad I don’t think so. D did slightly better than your D and the concordance was only -20. That’s still 99th percentile and I’m still not hearing that many near perfect scores. I don’t know about yours but my D is tired of this standardized testing. And the schools she contacted about their highly competitive scholarships advised her not to obsess about her really good score (i.e., don’t retake) and focus on the rest of her app. We’re going with that even with less than stellar essay scores. She is happy to be done.