My son got an 800 sat math and 650 english. Do you think he should try sat again or focus on EC to get into top engineering schools
It somewhat depends on which “top engineering schools” he’s targeting. Ideally, you’d like to be above the mid-point of the 25th and 75th percentiles found on the CDS. EBRW isn’t as crucial as Math, but it certainly isn’t ignored. When you have more M800s than slots, you turn to the other data points.
While 800 obviously will meet the bar, MIT, for example, has an EBRW 25th percentile of 720, so an improvement would certainly help an MIT application.
My spreadsheets are at home, but I suspect this would be similar for the truly “top” (4-6] schools.
EDIT: a quick glance at CMU, Cornell, Michigan confirms the above.
Hopefully SAT prep and EC participation aren’t mutually exclusive.