SAT I Crisis!

<p>i received my SAT i score today and my critical reading score WENT DOWN despite all the time and effort i invested in studying for it..</p>

<p>my june sat scores are as follows:
CR: 690
Math: 600
Writing: 720</p>

<p>my october sat scores are:
CR: 650! (40 point decrease yikes!)
Math: 710
Writing: 760</p>

<p>Now my question is how bad this drop in cr is going to affect the admissions process? i would like to retake the test on january, however, i have heard rumors that it is highly inadvisable to take the test more than twice since apparently it would send the signal to prospective colleges that you are obsessive..
any advice or comment will be highly appreciated!</p>

<p>Most colleges really do not care if you take more than twice. However, Harvard and Yale provide the cryptic message that they do not believe it is to the applicant's advantage to take it more than twice (they don't expressly say it will be held against you, they just say it is not to your advantage). As to whether you should retake be aware that many colleges do not take test scores past the December test date and thus January may be too late (you need to check with particular colleges; they usually publish last test date accepted on their sites). Also be aware that the majority of colleges (including most of the private high ranks) use your best subscores from multiple tests for admission, meaning your score that will be considered for admission is 690/710/760 and the lower CR won't be considered against you. Other colleges, including large numbers of public universities use that test which has the highest composite score, meaning your second test with the 650 CR will be used for admission by those colleges.</p>

<p>Dude (or Dudess, if your handle is any indication) stop worrying...most colleges superscore anyway so what their admissions officers will see in your file will be:
CR- 690
M- 710
W- 760</p>

<p>You have a 1400/2160. Chances are overwhelming that if you do get rejected from any college (including HYP) that your test scores will not be the reason for their rejecting you.</p>

<p>Plus, if you look at the SAT curves in the blue book, a 40 point drop in CR means you probably missed about 2-3 more questions this time around than last time. Although I'm no expert on college admissions (I'm an HS senior), I think your test scores are more than adequate for most schools and adequate for the top schools (Ivies, MIT, Stanford, Duke etc)</p>

<p>^Not high enough for HYP however...</p>

<p>first of all, what is HYP if you dont mind my asking?</p>

<p>How about i send my scores to the colleges of my choice after my december SAT II's and then retake my SAT I in january. If there is at least a 100-200 increase in score, then maybe i can send my scores. If not, then how about i don't send them at all?</p>

<p>bobmattelt1 not everyone in the world wants to go to harvard, princeton or yale, so why even bring it up? egad, man, sometimes a 2400 is not good enough for those schools</p>

<p>for most schools on the planet, your scores are great, so don't stress so much...</p>

<p>SAT are part of the package, GPA, etc also is important....</p>

<p>ANd the general rule is its a waste of time after taking it 3 times</p>

<p>thing is, i will probably end up retaking them in january because i am a candidate for this scholarship program in my country and part of their selection process involves high sat scores. assuming that my scores go up by at least 100 points, is it worth submitting my scores to colleges? or are they going to think that i am an SAT obsessed freak and put me at a disadvantage?</p>

<p>sarah:</p>

<p>I see your other posts on the Stanford & Harvard forums, and you appear to be international applicant. I think it is hard for most on cc to really know how test scores are used in evaluation international applicants, particularly at those two schools.</p>

<p>Do not be concerned about taking the SAT a third time; colleges just don't care. It is in THEIR best interest to use the highest score possible in their admission evaluations (makes for good publicity). But, your strategy is a good one -- send scores now and retake if you want; sometimes one gets lucky and finds CR passages that are almost interesting. Another option is to try the ACT which gives you the option to not report at all if the result is not as good as your 1400 SAT score.</p>

<p>so no matter how much I increase my score the third time around colleges simply won't care?</p>

<p>It's not a crisis. Check an earlier posting for more information. </p>

<p><a href="http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/showpost.php?p=4198038&postcount=1%5B/url%5D"&gt;http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/showpost.php?p=4198038&postcount=1&lt;/a> </p>

<p>Where are you applying, by the way?</p>

<p>oh wow thank you! its such a relief to know that i won't be put at a disadvantage. =)
I know that my scores are much lower in comparison to other applicants however they are considered very high in the region I'm in which is the middle east and apparently colleges take that into consideration. I know many average applicants with average accomplishments from my school who have been accepted at Upenn with a score below a 2000 as well as someone w/ a 1430/1600 score who has been accepted at harvard, princeton, and stanford. That being said, I'm going to test my luck and apply to yale, harvard, stanford, columbia, upenn, northwestern, michigan, and georgetown. It's a long shot i know..</p>