<p>The advice is from MIT, but it could have been written by any Ivy League admissions’s director.</p>
<p>[MIT</a> Admissions | Blog Entry: “What’s the big deal about 40^2?”](<a href=“http://www.mitadmissions.org/topics/apply/standardized_test_requirements/whats_the_big_deal_about_402.shtml]MIT”>http://www.mitadmissions.org/topics/apply/standardized_test_requirements/whats_the_big_deal_about_402.shtml)</p>
<p>“A student with “the magic 1600” is not implicitly better to us than a student with “the spellbinding 1400.” Scores are one tool we use to help us in admissions. And yes, your grades and test scores (especially your grades) are important. But as I have said in the past, what ultimately really matters to us is who you are, what qualities you bring to the table.”</p>
<p>and</p>
<p>“Let me tell you one more story that I often relay. I was doing a regional reception in a city a few years back, and afterwards a student – we’ll call her Artemis – comes up to me and tells me that she has a 760 on the Math SAT. As I was about to tell her that her score was just fine, she keeps talking, to inform me that she was going to take the test again, since “clearly” her score was “too low.” I was like, “What!!!” I “ordered” Artemis to not take the Math SAT again, and instead to have a picnic on that Saturday. Because to us, a 760 math is the same as any higher score she could receive on the retest.”</p>