<p>Either the OP is mistaken and 1100 represents Critical Reading and Math only, in which case she can easily get into a good school, considering her GPA, or the student has severe test taking anxiety in standardized test venues. That can happen. I thought averaging LESS than 400 for all three segments (including the writing test) was almost impossible.</p>
<p>I agree with another poster who urged the student to figure out a way to get into a Kaplan or Princeton Review (for this particular student, studying on her/his own is probably not the way to go) SAT course and re-take. The ACT is no gimme either, although it is more about subject knowledge than test taking tricks like the SAT. </p>
<p>I think we’re hastily pre-judging by recommending that this student give up and go to community college. Regular classes or not, a 3.7 indicates some ability. </p>
<p>And, frankly, college isn’t all that difficult. I thought college was easier than high school.</p>
<p>Some smart people just don’t test well. That doesn’t necessarily mean a CC, despite the general attitude around here. Look into the SAT optional colleges but be aware that sometimes not submitting scores will impact merit aid. If your friend is likely to interview well, encourage her to go that route.</p>
<p>Writing issues, high classroom grades, extremely low SAT in all three sections: This just screams unidentified dyslexia to me. Has she been screened for that or for learning disabilities in general?</p>
<p>I randomly bubbled in the answers to a diagnostic test once for fun and got higher than a 1100… Anyways, she can’t possibly do well in USH without strong writing skills, especially if she intends to take the AP class.</p>
I don’t necessarily agree that it’s favorable for her to go with an SAT course vs. self-study. I think if she truly got 1100 out of her own ability that she never bothered to put in practice or prep. I’d assume that she never took a look at an SAT beforehand. Hypothetical: you can take the SAT for the first time ever and get a score; then, you can go through a few practice SAT’s, not even study, but just complete a few, and your score can easily increase a large amount; then, you can simply read on different strategies for various sections and this can boost it a small amount. If it’s true that she never took a look at an SAT beforehand, I think her score would skyrocket just by sitting down, completing a few, and reviewing the answers.</p>
<p>There is actually a way that she can get into a few ivies.</p>
<p>Have her take the ACT with Writing, which is an alternative choice to the SAT for a few ivies. The ivies that do take the ACT with Writing as an option exercise something called score choice, where she can chose what test scores to send in. Have her do her ACT and score high on it (it is considerably easier than the SAT), score high (the highest is a 36, have her get something in the 30’s), and apply. Just remember to have her NOT submit her SAT score.</p>
<p>Optionally, if she also does not do well in her ACT then she can just take it over before it comes time to submit. </p>
<p>A tip to scoring high on both the SAT and ACT: Test Practice, preferably in a individual or group setting using a SAT prep program.</p>
<p>I don’t know how bad that is since the SATs changed after I took them a long time ago, but I had great grades in high school, was moderately involved, was a good writer and had glowing letters of rec. I didn’t apply to Harvard or anything like that, but I applied to some good publics and was accepted and did well and even went through grad school. I was not good at standardized tests, particularly the math sections, but it’s not the end of the world.</p>
<p>A 3.7 unweighted is not Ivy League status. And going by another poster’s assumption, if it is true: if her courses are largely academic courses vs. advanced courses (honors/AP/IB), Ivy League is out the door.</p>
<p>To compare to the old SAT, just subtract 1/3 from the value to get a relative estimate.
1100 * 2/3 is gonna be around 733 on the old SAT.</p>
<p>Sorry, but I want to respond to the post above mine. There is no such thing as “Ivy-League” status, and it really comes down to you as an individual to get you in the door.</p>
<p>I knew a person with a great GPA and a SAT score of 1800. She got accepted to Harvard University. Conversely, a person that is currently mentoring me had a SAT score of 2150 and a high gpa, and too was accepted to Harvard. </p>
<p>My only point is that it goes both ways, and thinking about “Ivy-League status” will not get you accepted. Just don’t have abysmal grades, do community service, and most importantly be strong as an individual. Colleges will want you.</p>
<p>you really should consider SAT optional schools. Many colleges would feel that this girl’s high school years were a breeze and she was babied and a teachers pet. Colleges feel that GPAs are not very accurate because they can be biased based on school to school and from teacher to teacher. In all honestly, we all know some teachers are much harder than others and some schools are much harder than others. Colleges feel that the SAT is a good way to evaluate someone’s reading, math, and writing abilities. There is no way that the SAT can be biased from one student to another. Many colleges will feel that she will not be able to handle college level work with SAT scores that low and they will feel that she was babied and pushed threw high school.</p>
I highly doubt that. While some people do get higher ACT scores than their SAT scores, we cannot expect OP’s friend to jump from ~14(?) ACT(based on the conversion one poster mentioned) to a 30+. Of course, let’s hope that she gets a good score on the ACT.</p>
<p>Nevertheless, getting into any ivy or top schools is almost out of the window. She definitely can try some other good schools though.</p>
<p>is she an immigrant? I have a lot of immigrant friends and they are very bright, but they’re vocabulary, and sometimes grammar, is quite lacking. They can name you all the organs and bones in the body in english, but when it comes to naming domestic items like dresser, detergent, clothing line in English, they are at a complete loss. When they write essays, the writing style has a twang to it…any english speaker could understand it perfectly, but it has idioms from their own native language written in a direct translation, and sometimes the world placements are little bit off. needless to say, they’re SAT scores no where reflect how hard working and intelligent they are.</p>
If this is true, then you can BET money on it they had something special. You can’t even get into UVa without having taken at least a decently rigorous course load.</p>
<p>Yeah, I would also check into SAT optional schools. I didn’t do particularly great on my SATs and I applied to both Wake Forest and Providence College, since they were SAT optional. If she struggled mostly on the writing section, there’s also a lot of schools where they only take into account the math & reading section. She should try the ACTs too…I know a lot of people that did a lot better on them</p>