<p>For a student like me (no amazing recs, no legacies, no huge athletic or academic awards), how high of a score would you require to improve your chances? I understand that "it's difficult to determine your chances with Ivys" and that "SATs aren't everything". But for a person with some volunteer, pretty good gpa and grades, and fairly good chance, what minimum score is needed to improve your chances?</p>
<p>IMO, for top schools and Ivys, it’s recommended that you get around 2200. </p>
<p>I’d say for a better shot, you want at least a 3.9 UW and a 2280+ </p>
<p>It really depends on a lot of other factors. For example, for Asians in your position, there is no “minimum SAT score” because there are SO many Asians like that (good stats, mediocre ECs). So basically their safest bet is a 2400 or at least a 2300. It’s obviously not going to be the case for everyone else. The 2200 SAT score is just an average of EVERYONE who applies/gets in, and it will account for every group. So just bear that in mind. </p>
<p>It also depends on whether you’re applying to Wharton or some extremely competitive dual degree program at Penn. Those obviously will have much higher standards than just, say, CAS (by no means easy or anything), especially Wharton (peruse the results threads and you’ll have a slight idea what I’m talking about). </p>
<p>I don’t agree that it makes sense that admissions expects higher SAT scores for Asian applicants. Once you get above a 2200, it really doesn’t mean much. I would think that having so many Asians high scores just diminishes the meaning of the score even more. That’s when they begin to look at other factors in your application.</p>
<p>I honestly don’t see why high schoolers think it’s so impressive to get above a 2300 on the SAT. It’s really not and that’s especially clear once you actually get to college. For the most part, it means that you just didn’t make as many careless errors as someone who got a 2200. A 2200 with an average of 740 on each section means you basically missed under 10 questions which doesn’t really reflect your ability on a four hour test.</p>
<p>@Poeme I don’t know, man. In my 70% Asian boarding school, a ~2200 was considered the most mediocre score. 2290s were retaking to get above a 2300. Even a 2330 retook (two times, which I actually did think was a bit much): 2330 -> 2340 -> 2390. And she did get into like every school. </p>
<p>People say anything above a 2200 is considered the same thing, but I truly, truly don’t think that it’s the same. I mean, all things being equal, why wouldn’t you pick the best score? Because, let’s face it, MOST Ivy-hopefuls WILL have around a 2200 anyway. The applicant pool is self-selective.</p>
<p>“I honestly don’t see why high schoolers think it’s so impressive to get above a 2300 on the SAT. It’s really not and that’s especially clear once you actually get to college. For the most part, it means that you just didn’t make as many careless errors as someone who got a 2200. A 2200 with an average of 740 on each section means you basically missed under 10 questions which doesn’t really reflect your ability on a four hour test.”</p>
<p>^This paragraph can be applied to any test given in high school. Why is a 97 a higher GPA bracket (at least in my school it was) than a 94? Do 3 points really mean THAT much? Obviously not. So why is GPA even being considered?? But that’s the whole point of a test. Careless mistakes can certainly be avoided, and that’s a sign of a good test-taker.</p>
<p>@Abstentions Well yeah. If you are just some stereotypical Asian kid trying to get into Wharton, then you will need anything to make you more qualified – including higher sat scores. However, if you have some unique characteristics that are demonstrated in your essays or excellent extracurriculars, then a somewhat “lower” SAT score is fine. </p>
<p>I understand that you go to a try-hard Asian school where everyone is competing with each other, but admission is called “holistic” for a reason.</p>
<p>@abstentions the SAT is much different than a normal high school test. It is much longer (4 hours with minimal breaks) and measures how well you can take the SAT more than anything else. </p>
<p>Just because you get a perfect or near perfect score on the SAT doesn’t mean you are a genius. It sounds like you haven’t started college yet, by believe me, I know people who have gotten as high as 2400 who have turned out to be completely mediocre at Penn. A lot of them even ended up with pretty poor GPAs. Just knowing how to take standardized tests and grind through high school does not make you an intelligent person. True intelligence is about the ability to develop insight that allows you to be creative and relate different areas.</p>
<p>For example, in my field for PhD admissions (physics) we take a subject test when we apply. This test is like the SAT (but with much more material from what we learned in undergrad) in that to do well you have to know how to take the test. This is completely different from how you are supposed to approach physics. In order to do well on the test you need to memorize and work fast. Because of this, many very smart students don’t do as well as expected since they are accustomed to fully thinking things out which will cause you to run out of time.</p>
<p>Over the years, schools have started to really deemphasize the test since they realized that it wasn’t really related to one’s ability above a certain threshold. They observed that many of the students who scored really high were not nearly as good as was suggested by their scores. At one of the grad schools I visited, they said that they compared faculty rankings of the applicants vs their scores and found pretty much no correlation.</p>
<p>The difference in this situation is that admissions is not done by a department and there are a lot more applicants. Still, I do believe that admissions at Ivies do not care nearly as much about SATs as people think. If they only cared about SATs and grades then they wouldn’t need teacher recs/essays/resumes. They are looking for an intelligent well rounded class, not a bunch of grinds who just care about memorizing and doing well in school to go into finance or med school or what not.</p>
<p>@HvePassion What you said applies to every race, not just Asians. Obviously if someone has some extraordinary EC then their other stats can be lower (of course it wouldn’t hurt to also have really good stats, but I guess it’s impossible for someone to have everything these days). That is an exception, and it does not apply to the OP.</p>
<p>@Poeme I don’t deny the fact that getting a perfect SAT score doesn’t mean someone is a genius. What I DO believe strongly, however, is that it will give someone a more likely chance of getting admitted into (maybe not THE college they dream for but) MORE colleges, given they apply to a good handful. I also think that teacher recs/essays tend to be pretty mediocre in general (like only a few out of thousands will actually be REALLY good), so they don’t really say that much nowadays. Also, the SAT isn’t the only 4-hour+ long test that many students will encounter in their life time. I highly doubt that for every single one of those tests, a score above a certain point doesn’t really matter. </p>
<p>If that were the case, then we would only have score brackets for everything. 2000-2200, 2200-2400. For the MCAT: 20-30, 30-36, 37-45 (or whatever). The whole point of the scoring system we now have is to actually be able to DIFFERENTIATE one applicant from the next. Because let’s face it, it’s really not hard to get a 2100+. Many Ivy-hopefuls can not even study and make that score (everyone is smart these days). But it takes MUCH more effort to push past a 2200 or 2300 or whatever someone’s goal is. And I really believe that that extra effort matters. </p>
<p>I don’t know, though. Maybe I’m wrong. But I honestly think, with my mediocre ECs (to be quite frank) and not quite perfect GPA (4.0s help SO much, esp for schools like Stanford, where basically 90% of their incoming class has a perfect GPA), I would not have gotten into the colleges I got into if I merely had a ~2200 SAT score. </p>
<p>@abstentions, the MCAT is much different than the SAT. It is based on what you learned in your required premed classes. It is actually very hard since it covers so much material.</p>
<p>The SAT as a test does not have the ability to differentiate students as well as the MCAT or LSAT do. I don’t agree that everyone is smart these days, they just know how to take tests. The fact is, when you’re at college, you can’t tell the difference between someone with a 2200 and someone with a 2400, although scores never come up to be honest (I don’t remember what any of my friends scored, except for the one who got a perfect score and got the lowest GPA of all of u). There are plenty of other ways applicants differentiate themselves like ECs and essays. If these colleges just admitted students by GPA, the classes would not be nearly as diverse as they are now.</p>
<p>You could most likely have an idea of how to tell people apart by their MCAT scores. Not everyone at Penn will do well on the MCAT even though they did very well on the SAT.</p>
<p>The use of standardized tests varies for different programs. The summer I was applying to grad schools professors told me not to study for the GRE since unless you didn’t score very well on the math (which is easier than the SAT) and did very poorly on the writing and reading sections, no one would care.</p>
<p>The problem with the SAT discussion is that the whole thing about whether or a 2200 is enough really comes down to the individual level.</p>
<p>Some people can’t afford to take the SAT 2 and 3 times. I think that will show in a holistic application. Another person has every resource available, wealthy school, Princeton Review courses and a private coach, why wouldn’t that person score more than a 2200. It he difference really does come down to one made fewer careless mistakes than another. The difficulty of each question is known. Some kids mess up on an easy question or two simply because they answer them so fast while getting the hardest questions totally correct.</p>
<p>Schools don’t look at each 10 point increment on the SAT and rank students numerically that way. </p>
<p>Also, a kid with 20 ECs and athletics and leadership roles probably doesn’t have the time to re-study and re-test multiple times either. A kid who places all their energy into the test may end up being too boring or uninteresting. If your greatest achievement in your application is your test score, be forewarned, you may be boring.</p>
<p>2400 is a wonderful score to get though, no doubt but one guy got on here on another thread talking about their 2300+ and being a total jerk. What good is a high score for that person? Maybe it makes up for an abrasive personality. I don’t know.</p>