I took the sat in May, June, and October and my super score is 1270. Now that I have enough money to get practice books, I think I can do better, like 1350+, but I am scared of the risk because 1) it is my fourth time 2) college board has been really inconsistent with their curves and I don’t want to risk a lower score. Please help I am a senior so I do not have much time
Normally the advice would be “don’t do it” but that’s because most people get those books for the first and/or second test. So now that you have what you believe you need to do well, ask yourself the following questions:
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Did you see any improvement throughout the first three tests?
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Which section or topics do you need to focus on?
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Have you used the free Kahn Academy tool and how did you do with it? How about the free College Board practice tests?
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What sort of study plan will you put together (presumably for the December test?). How will it differ from what you’ve been doing?
Most important: What is your set of schools? Why do you need a 1350+?
Give it a shot. A lot of colleges will superscore, so don’t worry about doing slightly worse than your pervious attempts. Statistically, a 70-point increase is unlikely for your 4th attempt, but if you have a good study plan that you didn’t have before, it can happen.
Give it a shot the curve cant be any worse than June and October!
I am worried about the curve obviously, but I am more worried about what colleges will think regarding this being my fourth attempt. My friends are telling me to just give up with the SAT because I already took it 3 times and one of my friends told me that even if I get up to 1400 colleges won’t care because it was my fourth time
Have you given ACT a try? I know kids who didn’t do well on SAT did better on ACT.
But try to find as many SAT practices as possible. Khan has all eight official tests free, print them out and do them all. Don’t worry about what college will think (or not think) this is your fourth try. Good luck!
You don’t have to send all four scores, unless the college requires you to send ALL test scores (Georgetown). So I think you are overthinking this. Just send your best math and your best reading and take them at their word if they say they superstore.
Most colleges do not require all SAT scores - check the standardized test requirements for the colleges you are interested in. Even for the ones that do require all SAT scores, having a significantly higher score would be worth taking a fourth time. Good luck!
For colleges that you are likely to be applying to, you will probably be able to send whatever scores you like. Go ahead and retake, but only if you put effort into prep. Otherwise, don’t spend the time and money.
For others reading, you don’t have to buy a book. The local library will have guides that can be checked out. There are also a ton of free resources online. Buying a study guide isn’t a prerequisite for doing well on the test.
^^ my son entirely used prep books borrowed from the library. If your library doesn’t have what you need, they will get it through inter library loan.
FYI my son used khan academy (free) to study. He got exact same score 3 times in a row then a 30 point improvement on the 4th time. From. 1440 to a 1470. Oddly the curve hurt him on the oct test. He got the 3 wrong in math in April for a 790, then 2 wrong on math in oct for a 770. Improved by more than two fold in the reading/language for only 50 point I,provement. Can’t understand it, but my point is I think you should keep taking until you get the score that you want.
Colleges. Do. Not. Care.
As Marvin100 stated. Colleges don’t care. My son took the Act 3 times and ended with a 34. Everyone said it’s impossible to keep improving. Every kid is different and he put in the time to improve. That is the key.
His college counselor told him they actually like kids that don’t give up… So take that for what’s it’s worth. But he had a Very high grade point also. Not everyone does well on standardized tests
Most colleges don’t care. A few require all scores and look at the pattern. Check your college’s admissions website.
Regardless of whether you are required to submit all scores, or just your best composite, or just enough to maximize your superscore, do NOT take the test a 4th time unless you really believe that the score improvement is worth the time away from other aspects of your application. ALL colleges will admit the strongest applicants they can, so make sure they see a strong application; not just one that is short in some areas because you continued to focus on standardized testing.
Finally, choose your reaches wisely and be sure to have backups.
I’d love to know which ones you think do this because I’ve been in this game for a looong time and have seen zero evidence and tons of evidence to the contrary, but I mainly deal with applicants to top-50 schools, so I’m sure I have some blind spots.
@marvin100 there are several among the top 50 who require all scores from either the SAT or ACT and G-Town requires all scores from everything. What do you suppose they are doing with that information? CMU even says on their website that they look at the pattern.
For those that claim they look at your superscore, that’s true and it will get you past the lower hurdles. After that everything’s on the table. Number of tests taken at the very least, if not every subscore from every test used for the superscore. After all, you have either sent that info. to them officially from the testing agency or disclosed it on your common app. They know that a 34 superscore and a 34 one-and-done aren’t the same thing.
@JBStillFlying - your reasoning is sound, but there’s a reason empiricism trumps reasoning, and in 16 years of working with hundreds of kids a year I’ve never seen the slightest bit of evidence, and I’ve seen dozens and dozens of cases of students who took the tests “too many times” and got accepted (yes, including CMU).
If I’m honest, I once believed what you do because it sounds right and everyone else seemed to think so, but you’ll have to excuse my skepticism at this point.
Slight digression, but the SAT isn’t curved, it uses an equating process to adjust for the difficulty of the test items.
@marvin100 - Your experience may hold simply because pretty much everyone vying for a top 50 uni retakes the SAT/ACT multiple times. That doesn’t mean two otherwise similar candidates aren’t distinguished by the number of tries to reach a 34 ACT - or a 34 one-and-done vs. a 34 “superscore”. When schools post things such as “An applicant’s testing history provides useful contextual information to the Admissions Committee.” (Yale), I don’t see how you can interpret that any other way except that they find information in your score history.
Think of it this way (taken from another poster on another thread): Two bus drivers, one passed the driving test on the 5th try, the other on the first try. Both might be otherwise employable and present similarly. When the bus company has to choose, which one is more likely to get the job?
Since you have access to a LOT of data, you can run statistical analyses to test these theories. Holding constant other key factors (GPA, SAT/ACT score, selectivity of institution, demographics, etc.), how does an admission rate vary by number of tests taken? You might even find that at certain ranges of scores, it doesn’t matter much and at others it matters a lot. Those institutions requesting score histories might not be doing something quite as sophisticated, but they are very likely relying on data as well - otherwise they wouldn’t be requesting the score history.
@jym626 - That’s true - the only relevant “curve” is the initial baseline distribution and all subsequent tests are equated relative to that. It’s just much easier to say “the June SAT has a harsh Math curve” than to admit that the June SAT had an easier math section LOL. Most, especially those who retake a few times, view their scaled results relative to number wrong, so it’s natural to think there are different curves being applied.
@JBStillFlying - good post. And your point is well taken, but people who think the test is “curved” think that their score is affected in part by the performance of the other test-takers on that day, and it isn’t true. The test scores are adjusted so that a 1450 on one test date is equal to a 1450 on another, based on the relative difficulty of the test items.