Should I retake the SAT?

Transfer Students
1

<p>Long story short, I intend to transfer after my freshman year at a very large, non-competitive, yet decently performing state school. I'm happy to experience my state school for a year, but it really doesn't have an appropriate academic plan for what I intend to do.</p>

<p>CR/MT/WR was 730/570/750 (2050/1300) one sitting.</p>

<p>Here is the list of schools I'm going to attempt to transfer into:
- Wellesley College
- Amherst College
- Simmons College
- Hampshire College
- Mount Holyoke College
- Smith College</p>

<p>I'm not terribly concerned about Wellesley or Amherst because they're too far out of my reach anyway; I'm applying to them because they're dream schools. What do you think? Should I retake or would it be unnecessary? If I should, I want to do it soon.</p>

2

<p>I think it depends on your other stats and which of these schools you REALLY want to get into. My daughter applied to 4 on your list as a regular freshman applicant. Her SAT was 2100. She was accepted at two of them and was waitlisted at one.</p>

<p>If your high school and college GPAs are great, and essays, ECs, refs, etc are great, then these scores are probably totally fine. But if you want to have the best shot to get in -especially to the more competitive ones- why not retake it?</p>

<p>Have you looked at where you fall in the SAT range for these schools? For example, Hampshire’s ranges are CR 600-700, M 540-650, W 580-680, so you’re looking good there. But Wellesley’s are CR 650-740, M 640-740, W 650-750, so your math is quite low for them. Smith and Mount Holyoke are almost identical at CR 610-720, M 600-700/710, W 620-720. Assuming you’re not going into a math/science field, your SATs look pretty good there. </p>

<p>Also, I don’t know if this applies to transfer students, but keep in mind that Wellesley requires (for regular applicants) two SATII subject tests in addition to regular SAT (or ACT with writing.)</p>

<p>My guess is that the more important thing is to get excellent grades your first semester of college. But if it’s not onerous to retake the SAT, why not?</p>