<p>I need opinions for my daughter. Here's the scenario: ACT 31 & 32; SAT much lower comparably 1260 w/out writing. Writing 750. National Merit Commendable. She is scheduled to retake the SAT next week. We are thinking at this point, that better to avoid retake. Her math (560 SAT) is her weak link. This will most likely not change much (maybe to 600) with SAT retake. Do you think it is better to submit as is--perhaps admissions will look at lower SAT as fluke? Her GC thinks she should take SAT again so as not to try to outguess college admissions. Her university goals are a major university.</p>
<p>Has she been preparing for it? I would say take it; you can always choose to just submit the ACT, so colleges won't see the SAT score if it's not where you want it to be.</p>
<p>Hm, can you remove her high school as a score recipient? (Or is there another way her school receives scores?) At any rate, colleges say they will consider the highest score between the ACT and the SAT...</p>
<p>We had D's scores sent after the 2nd time she took the SAT's. She took the test a third time, but only the writing was higher, so we didn't have scores sent anywhere. (This was 3 years ago when the writing section was brand new and all the schools were saying they didn't know what to do with it, so weren't counting it.)</p>
<p>most ivies require sat iis even with the act so they will see her sat score regardless (yale is the only exception that im aware of) my advice is take lots of practice tests my cr jumped 100 points and all i did was take five practice tests the five days before or something like that</p>
<p>UT Austin in her mind is her safety school. You are right, she does have to take SAT II's and therefore, the colleges will see her scores. At this point she has a 31 and a 32 ACT. She is hoping the one SAT (if that's all she takes) will look like a fluke. She is afraid if she takes again and doesn't score higher, then, it will not appear as an anomaly. She is top 5 in her school. I am thinking the low SAT will not hurt her as much as she thinks. </p>
<p>I hesitate to give advice on this, but I would take all the schools' data sets and determine whether any reasonable increase in the SAT score (700V-560M-750Writing) would make a substantail difference in where the applicant falls in the acceptance range.</p>
<p>If it would take an unreasonably large increase in the SAT scores to make any differrence, I'd consider whether the risk of a lower score is worth it.</p>
<p>My observation is that the ACT scores seem to validate the NM Commended from the PSAT.</p>
<p>I have a son at Duke who had similar scores until spring of junior year and the fall of senior year when on his own he simply mastered the art of pacing and testing and did pracitce tests sort of like the xiggi method. He realized he was going to have to teach himself testing skills and that his classwork in our mediocre to lousy HS wasn't going to help him and wasn't good enough. He was also a hard worker but ranked below your girl. If I could see a PET scan, maybe some kind of circuitry or rewiring took place..or motivation level altered or he just matured as a tester. He prepped for all his SATIIs and started acing them and in the fall he was ready for his last chance at the SAT. His scores were surprisingly better senior fall.
I don't think you should stop testing. However, if she is as stressed as my current HS junior is..with exams and APs this month...catch your breath and have her seriously work on either ACT prep or SAT prep over the summer. Consider a tutor in math...after all the SAT math doesn't go that far in advance. She could simply try to get all the easy and mediums correct and come up with a strategy. She needs coaching and practice to up that math score. With her class rank being such a positive, you can't lose for trying on her standardized testing. Wake Forest and Vanderbilt are very selective and you should not consider them match schools even though she might look on paper like she is in Wake's mean, consider that a possible match/reach. Build your list with a solid match list and then go for it with Wake, Vandy, UR and those schools with all she's got. It is possible that a best strategy with her handsome writing score already in the bag...is ACT without writing
preparation and testing. You don't have to send those out or even put her HS down on the test. Reporting is optional.
Just my opinion. My son was admitted to Wake and Vandy with zero merit money offered with very high test scores and a slew of near perfect SATIIs. He was disappointed that he did not stand out enough to be offered even a modest percentile merit incentive offer. Clearly, most of the class had his scores and he was not unusual.</p>