<p>hispanic male </p>
<p>SAT: 2280
SAT 2: 800,790</p>
<p>GPA: 4.73
very competitive school
top 10%</p>
<p>should i retake the SAT if im considering IVIES?</p>
<p>You’d be insane to do so. Congratulations on your achievement. Good luck to you.</p>
<p>Look at this thread
<a href=“http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/showthread.php?t=402092&highlight=quartiles[/url]”>http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/showthread.php?t=402092&highlight=quartiles</a></p>
<p>I think all topics with these questions should be answered the same way: your score is great already, but if you are routinely scoring higher on timed practice tests and truly think there is a reason you can improve your score by 50+ points, then go for it. For ‘lower’ ivies, that score is perfectly fine for URM with your sat ii scores and retaking is not necessary.</p>
<p>It’s fine (read: great) for any top school.</p>
<p>Even ivies don’t expect all admitted students to have a 2300+. Your 2280 is perfectly fine and above average for applying to ivies, and your score is absolutely great (practically a guaranteed admission with lots of scholarships) for nearly everywhere else. Remember, other factors are often more important.</p>
<p>so for “higher” ivies, like princeton (where my brother went) it would be advisable to retake it? it’s my first one so i guess it wouldn’t hurt</p>
<p>No no NO.</p>
<p>You’d be crazy to retake a score that’s 99+ %ile. Have you even read the thread that T26E4 linked to?</p>
<p>It boggles my mind how some people are smart enough to get such high scores yet consider retaking.</p>
<p>i’ve also gone to state for speech and debate twice and started a program with local poor, generally URM schools dealing with forensics, with an emphasis on ethics and logic skills</p>
<p>is that worth anything? i did cuz i enjoyed the program at my school and saw that most URM are underrepresented in this field.</p>
<p>haha. i must seem annoying. its just i kind of freak out about things like this. </p>
<p>thanks for all the advise though, i love this website</p>
<p>There’s always room for improvement if you’re considering something like Princeton.</p>
<p>Sorry if most people don’t agree with me, but I actually improved significantly even though I had 2300+. it’s personal experience, from a personal point of view, plus the fact that I’m an international up against stronger competition/.</p>
<p>no! don’t waste your valuable time, in the end you might only end up going +100points, if not worsening your score</p>
<p>Of all people who are telling you not to retake for Princeton, how many people do you know who got into Princeton, and what are <em>their</em> SAT scores? I personally know quite a few princeton admits as well as their SAT scores – and they are godly high. I agree with all of you that a 2280 is already in the 99% percentile. Within the general population that score is ridiculously good. But the problem is that Pton admits are generally performing probably at or above 98ish% unless they are nonacademically hooked. Anyway, I still think that if you feel you can raise that score 50 or more points, <em>why not</em> retake it? It can’t hurt unless your score lowers. Of course, if you feel you got lucky on your first testing, and if your practice tests are yielding scores at or below 2280, then don’t retest.</p>
<p>By the way, your brother going to Pton makes you a legacy, right? Your forensics thing and debate both sound great 
From what you’ve already told us, you sound like a strong candidate for Pton and your SAT score is also strong. But since that 2280 was your first testing, who knows.. maybe you could break 2300 and go up even higher. It’s only a couple hours out of your life for the test, and a bit more for studying…</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>If you could go up 100 points to 2380 that would be fantastic. What do you mean ‘only’ 100 points? The last 100 points are the <em>hardest</em> to go up.</p>
<p>yep 
finally someone who agrees! i guess both amb3r and I went through the same experience - we both improved to the same score after retakes. congrats amb3r ;)</p>
<p>I want to quote a poster from the thread linked above:</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>This girl hardly studied for her second testing, and bumped her already high score up an amazing 90 points!! Is four hours worth going from 2290 to 2380? All you’re losing is that small chunk of a Saturday morning.</p>
<p>Screwitlah (congrats to you too :)), yes, part of the reason is that I, like the girl whose quote is above, hardly studied for a second SAT testing. I started in the low 2300s and went up to a 2400 this October. I feel great about my decision to retest an already high score. If I had asked for advice from this board I would probably have received a resounding ‘NO’ not to retest. But I think those four hours were well worth my time! If I hadn’t taken the SAT this october, I would probably just have slept through that Saturday morning, anyway :P.</p>
<p>Anyway, the point is that you are the only one who can make the decision about whether retaking on a 2280 is worth it. Will scoring above 2300 drastically improve your chances at Princeton? Probably not, because as people have said, 2280 is <em>great</em> (URM or not!), and adcoms are definitely a bit more lenient about test scores for URMs so you are practically perfect.</p>
<p>i was pretty nervous for the first one and got thrown off by the first section (a strange experimental) so i guess i will take it again. in the off chance that i did do worst? is that really bad?</p>
<p>If you do significantly worse I.E. bomb, it will hurt, yep.. colleges will be confused because you have great sat ii’s and a good first test, so they will probably chalk it up to a ‘bad day’ since the rest of your application is <em>still strong</em>..</p>
<p>if you score lower but not much (still above 2200) basically colleges will think that your level is about 2250, which is still respectable. And if you get within a 20 point range of your 2280, you’re just reconfirming your first score, which should neither help nor hurt you.</p>
<p>But since you think that your score last time would have been even better without a weird 1st section experimental, I don’t see any reason why your score should drop a -lot- on retest. Like you, I was hella nervous the first time I took the SAT. If you decide to take it again, remind yourself that your score is already amazing and that the pressure is sorta off, so just relax and do the best you can. That seems to work for a lot of people who are trying to raise already high scores.</p>
<p>HEHEHE.
This kind of words would be beaten to death in our Chinese Forum.
For us Chinese, a score of 2280 would be seen as incredible. Many students have worked for a year with only a score of more than 2000. Anyway, I am from a different country, and I just comment it for fun. I have got 2230 for my first time, but I dare not tell it to my classmates only not to hurt them, for they have all spend more time and more efforts than me.</p>
<p>A 2280, top 10% rank, and URM status will get him in almost anywhere, provided the rest of his application is up to snuff. I had a 2280 and got into virtually all of the schools I applied to, most of them with hefty scholarships.</p>
<p>Do yourself a favor and do something more productive with your time.</p>
<p>No way Jose!</p>
<p>Threads like this make me lose my faith in humanity. Ok, not in humanity, but maybe in this country’s system of higher education…But seriously, get a grip, that score is very impressive.</p>