<p>The other point I’d like to make is that colleges look at CR + M. You may be a little low in one but make it up by being higher in the other. This student is a combined 1480. Browns average combo (50th percentile) is 1425. Dartmouth is 1450…Cornell is lower than that (varies from college to college within Cornell). I’d go with option B, taking the ACT. Do your best to help your chances but in the end you’ll get into a school you belong at. Don’t get so hung up on this that you don’t enjoy your senior year…you are going to be just fine. Remember…things turn out the best for those who make the best of the way things turn out!!</p>
<p>
</p>
<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>
<p>
</p>
<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>