To retake, or not to retake, that is the question...

Test Preparation
1

<p>The deadline for the march SAT is nearing and I'm in a dilemma, whether or not to retake the sat.</p>

<p>I have a 2290 right now, verbal:800, math:800, writing:690 and I'm planning on applying to some very competitive schools (Stanford, Yale, Caltech). I've read somewhere that one shouldn't retake if you've gotten over 2200, but with the fact that my score is so unbalanced, I'm not sure that applies to me.</p>

<p>Should I just focus on making my application essays as good as possible, to show colleges I'm not retarded at writing?</p>

2

<p>wow...how the heck do you get 800 in verbal and math both?? you are amazing.. give me some tips...</p>

<p>I would say you are stupid if you retake it. Work on your essay....plus most colleges look for the verbal and math only cuz thats what the old SAT had. Just prove with your essay that you are not retarded at writing...</p>

<p>hey, help me with the SAT...LOL how did you prep??</p>

3

<p>no prep, just went, took it, and realized I suck writing at essays quickly (essay score=7).</p>

4

<p>you really don't need to retake. it's better to just keep those scores which are really good.</p>

5

<p>dont retake</p>

6

<p>well, what you could do is send your scores to the colleges you are applying to before you take the march test, and then only re-send the scores if you improve significantly. They don't have to know that you have retaken the SAT.</p>

<p>It took me ages to get the hand of this sending scores thing... my first choice college will have now got 5 score reports off me!!</p>

7

<p>wow, i'm not trying to show off but even i got a 7 in the essay....however, you must be a genius to get 800s in other sections...i envy you</p>

8

<p>a lot of colleges overlook writing scores because they dont really mean anything. I'd retake though for that 750+ writing only if you manage the 1600 again.</p>

9

<p>interesting point</p>

10

<p>retake it, if thats what you want. but you are risking perfect 800s in 2 subjects</p>

11

<p>The 800 is a scaled score, contingent on how hard that particular test was. Did you score a perfect 800 or did you miss questions? Duplicating a perfect score is going to be more difficult and you may not find it worth the effort. If you missed 3 or 4 questions and scored an 800, you might decide you can pull that off again.</p>

<p>Another option is to take the ACT. If you nail all the sections in the ACT, you can send both the SAT and ACT scores in the hopes the SAT writing score will look like an anomaly.</p>

12

<p>It's really up to you whether or not you want to take the SAT again. Personal opinion? No, and I'll explain why.</p>

<p>Most colleges take the highest verbal you've recieved, the highest math, and the highest writing, and they consider those as one SAT. If you (somehow) managed to do this:
SAT Attempt #1: Math:800, Verbal:200, Writing:200
SAT Attempt #2: Math:200, Verbal:800, Writing:200
SAT Attempt #3: Math:200, Verbal:200, Writing:800</p>

<p>Then it would be considered a 2400, and this is the policy, according to the admissions people, of 11 schools I visited (even Dartmouth).</p>

<p>BUT, at least for last years class (and probably this year, but you'll have to find that out), the writing score was not considered for 2 reasons:
A) It was new and there isn't enough data on scores.
B) It's not about writing a good essay; its about writing it to criterea.</p>

<p>I bought the Official SAT Book and read an example of a perfect (6 per scorer) essay. The person was supposed to take a stand on whether deception was sometimes necessary.</p>

<p>What followed was 2 pages of nonsense during which the person said that slavery justified the civil war, and sometimes deception was justified, full of spelling and grammatical errors.</p>

<p>It was a joke. Basically, under a page, highest you can get is a four. And a University professor (MIT I believe) guessed SAT essay scores from ACROSS THE ROOM- based on length, with a surprising degree of accuracy.</p>

<p>It isn't worth the time or the money to retake. Good job on the double 800's.</p>

13

<p>I also say don't retake, and I had a very similar issue as you--that my writing score was lowish (relatively speaking, of course). I took the SAT three times with the primary goal of raising my 710 writing score. Now, my three SAT scores were 2170--2240--2270, with a superscored 2290 (hey, extra points are extra points). I made NO gains in the writing section, scoring 710/710/700. I made gains of 60 points in each of the other two sections, so my three retakes were beneficial to me. But had I had a 2290 after my first or second attempt, I seriously doubt I would have taken it a third time. It is a small data set, but if you go to a place like Collegedata and look at the admissions decision for the class of 2010, you will see very little correlation between admissions decision and writing score--MUCH LESS correlation than the other two scores. Use your saturdays for something more fun :).</p>

14

<p>I say it might not be a bad idea to retake if you are willing to put forth the time. The writing section, especially te grammar part, is something you can improve on dramatically with a little studying.
P.S. Most colleges are now using the writing section in admissions, as opposed to a couple yeas ago when the section was too new.
Your other two sections are impressive though. I'm not sure I believe that you didn't study for them. Maybethat's my prblem. I study too much.</p>

15

<p>random bob, you gotta tell me how you got a 800 on the CR, man. I would KILL for that? Also, what books did you use?</p>

16

<p>rule of thumb: dont retake if your above 2250 . its ridiculous.</p>

<p>i know people who made it to the ivys with 2200s.</p>

17

<p>I wouldn't retake it. You already have perfect scores on both the verbal and math sections, and that's what matters most. The writing score isn't completely terrible either, and most colleges don't really take that one into consideration because it's still fairly new.</p>

18

<p>Coopjust,</p>

<p>it is not really true that a combination of 200-200-800 scores will
be treated as a perfect score (800-800-800). If you have a series
of wildly fluctuating SAT I scores, it is like not having SAT scores at all, because there is no way to interpret the scores. That is different from
the usual situation where the SAT's vary in a moderate range; in those typical cases the university will not think too hard about your numbers and just mechanically apply their formula that uses the higher of the subtest scores or the highest single sitting. But if there is something strikingly aberrant about your SAT scores, admissions officers will note it, since they see all the scores on the report.</p>