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<p>So many things wrong with this post. SAT/GPA are not just used as “qualifiers;” there is no magical threshold after which improvements no longer matter. Indeed, mifune has an excellent analysis out there somewhere proving that likelihood of admission to top schools increases exponentially with increases in SAT score (though the results are confounded by the likely relationship between SAT score, GPA, and the impressiveness of “soft factors” like ECs). </p>
<p>And your friend with the 1440? Awesome–but anecdotal information is rarely helpful, and it’s entirely possible that this person was hooked in some way.</p>
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<p>I pick C, but you’re the only one intimately aware of how stressful your apps, schoolwork, and ECs would be on top of prep. For the unhooked, you want your scores as high as possible; if you can raise them signficantly with prep, there’s no reason not to–unless, of course, your schoolwork or the quality of your applications would suffer signficantly.</p>