The eternal question...

Test Preparation
1

<p>To retake, or not to retake?
Took the SAT, here are my scores...
Math 670
Reading 740
Writing 710
Total 2120</p>

<p>I'm looking to apply to schools like Swarthmore, Brown, Vassar, William and Mary, Princeton and Amherst...the statistics for my scores improving aren't overly favorable. Opinions?</p>

2

<p>Some people retake, and some people don't. </p>

<p><a href="http://www.collegeboard.com/prod_downloads/highered/ra/sat/AverageScores.pdf%5B/url%5D"&gt;http://www.collegeboard.com/prod_downloads/highered/ra/sat/AverageScores.pdf&lt;/a> </p>

<p>If they do, the policy of most colleges is to consider your best scores (e.g., Harvard says, "ONLY your best scores"), so you have little to worry about giving the test another try. </p>

<p><a href="http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/showpost.php?p=4198038&postcount=1%5B/url%5D"&gt;http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/showpost.php?p=4198038&postcount=1&lt;/a> </p>

<p>You are probably in range already for some of the colleges you like </p>

<p><a href="http://apps.collegeboard.com/search/CollegeDetail.jsp?collegeId=760&profileId=6%5B/url%5D"&gt;http://apps.collegeboard.com/search/CollegeDetail.jsp?collegeId=760&profileId=6&lt;/a> </p>

<p><a href="http://apps.collegeboard.com/search/CollegeDetail.jsp?collegeId=3090&profileId=6%5B/url%5D"&gt;http://apps.collegeboard.com/search/CollegeDetail.jsp?collegeId=3090&profileId=6&lt;/a> </p>

<p>so you have to decide yourself whether effort applied to raising your scores with a retake is better rewarded than effort on, say, improving your application essays or devoting yourself to your extracurricular activities. </p>

<p>P.S. You are correct that this is the "eternal," or at least eternally repeated, question on this forum. Best wishes in making a decision on whether or not to retake that fits your goals. Don't worry about it too much.</p>

3

<p>I think you should give it another try. I'm sure this time you can get over 740 or something on Math and possibly more on the other 2 sections.</p>

4

<p>if that was your first time I would probably retake. without knowing how much prep you did, I would say with just a bit of practice you should be able to improve (even though the scores are already fine!).</p>

5

<p>I think, with something like Math being your weaker point, you should try to retake. If you study up, it's gonna be easy to improve your Math. It's hard to improve CR, but seeing that it's not your problem, you should definately study over the summer and improve your math skills. Then retake and superscore :)</p>

6

<p>retake .</p>

7

<p>DO IT! I had a score higher than yours originally and decided to retake because my CR was a 700. Best decision I ever made.</p>

8

<p>if you are looking at those schools, retake it.</p>

9

<p>you can either retake the SAT or give a shot at the ACTs</p>