My child applied ED last week without reporting her SAT score. Today she got her latest SAT score and it is 1420. Is that good enough to report to NEU or should we let it go? She is applying to CAMD and has a 3.84 UW GPA. She also submitted a portfolio. I know it’s below their 50% but it’s in their accepted range. Not sure what to do.
I would submit the score. It’s another point by which to weigh your kid’s admission. 1420 isn’t amazing, but it should be good enough to help at least a little on the application. Since many other applicants won’t be submitting scores at all, having even a low score that’s within range is a plus. I recently applied to several colleges, and submitted my scores at all of them.
That’s not true. Not submitting a score does not put you at a disadvantage.
I didn’t mean to imply that not submitting a score would be a disadvantage. I just meant that having a score is an added data point to increase your chances at admission, and not everyone will have that data point this year.
But in this case, the data point probably won’t help. As the poster notes, it is on the low end for admitted students.
During a live Q&A, they said that if you weren’t within their “middle 50%” of accepted kids in the past, then you might as well not submit it. They added that if you have a god one, especially over the median, then it can help you.
Two things: The middle 50% for ACCEPTED (not enrolled, which is always lower) was 1470-1550 last year, per Northeastern’s own site. So I would say don’t submit it.
Next, if having an above-median score can help you, that means that your chance of getting in is higher due to your score. If someone’s chance of getting in is higher due to their SAT score, and the school isn’t increasing the number of people admitted just because it is difficult to take the SAT right now, that means that for others their chances ARE SLIGHTLY LOWER. It is a zero-sum game. So this talk of “test optional” doesn’t mean they don’t care or that not submitting a score won’t help you. It means you don’t HAVE TO. But compared to someone who submits a good score (by their high standards), your chances are lower by not submitting a score. And this is why, in my opinion, they should have just not looked at it. Making matter worse, they originally had a date to submit your scores by 11/15 for ED kids. For those who took the 11/7 test, this wasn’t going to help (the results come out 11/20). (Some schools, like Villanova, have a date of 11/22 to submit scores.) They then changed the date last month to 11/10.
This isn’t accurate. If submitting a high score helps someone (and the school says it will, per a live Q&A session online), then those with a high SAT score on record have a better chance of getting in than someone who doesn’t. By not submitting a score, you are at a disadvantage compared to those who submitted a high score. So I guess you could say not submitting a score is at best like submitting a score typical for someone with your GPA…they will just have to assume that is what you would get.
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But it’s not within their accepted middle 50% range. The 25th percentile last year was 1470 for ACCEPTED students (lower for ENROLLED).
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No. You are evaluated on what you submitted. If Candidate A’s package is an A+ without the score and Candidate B has a high score but other aspects of the application are not as strong, Candidate A will have the advantage. If all other aspects are exactly the same, the school will essentially flip a coin as they do in all other cases of equally qualified candidates. Not submitting a score will not hurt you.
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Just to follow up and help future years (if they are still not requiring the SAT), we did submit my childs 1420 SAT score and she was admitted ED 1. I have no idea if the SAT score had any effect on her application status or not, but at least it didn’t hurt. She applied to CAMD and did apply for FA.
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