What are realistic matches/reaches with an SAT score in the mid-1400s?

College Search & Selection
1

If in some hypothetical world you’re just basing an application on SAT score alone, what schools would be good match/reach candidates if your score was floating around the mid 1400s?

I’m really gonna try to improve my score on the august SAT but that’s just where I’m at right now, and I’m struggling to find schools I actually want to go to that statistically speaking favor someone with my scores. From my perspective, it seems like I see schools accepting people in the 1200-1300 demographic, and then in the 1500+ range for the super elite schools, it seems like I have no option but to reach or to aim low.

2

You can use this tool. https://www.collegeconfidential.com/schools/search

3

Many students at the school I work at would be thrilled to get a 1400+ on the SAT and they usually head off to colleges. What type of college are you looking for (major, urban/suburban/rural, size, LAC/research, region, D1 sports or not, Greek or not, etc)?

4

The average SAT scores at many of the top schools are in the mid-1400s.

E.g., Average for Williams College Accepted Students This Year: 733 reading/writing, 747 math. Those scores are in the range you named.

Also, as you noted, acceptances are not based solely on scores.

Your answers to Creekland’s questions above can help posters make suggestions that will appeal to you.

Good luck!

5

As an example Boston College mean SAT was 1450 for 2018 and 33 ACT. Pretty elite school. I think you’ll have pretty much all the options available. The problem is that you are correct in one regard. All the schools in the top echelon are pretty much a reach for 95 to 99 percent of all students that aren’t uniquely connected, needed to promote diversity or athletic

6

Agree with @privatebanker, but some people do get into their reaches, and it also is possible to find a match that you will love if you do not get into a reach. E.g., My kid is thrilled to be going to Williams, but would have been very happy to attend Skidmore if that was how it had worked out. Spend your time searching for good matches and safeties as well as reaches and you will find some good ones!

7

Your high school record is highly important for college admissions.

8

As with many distributions across population sets, standardized scoring characteristics tend to fall continuously along the spectrum of colleges. Based on scoring in isolation, you would be likely to find matches in the ~51-100 range in this analysis: https://amp.businessinsider.com/the-610-smartest-colleges-in-america-2015-9. Should you desire high matches and reaches, you would be likely to find them in this group: http://www.businessinsider.com/the-50-smartest-colleges-in-america-2016-10#39-wellesley-college-average-sat-1390-13. Note that the average scores listed originated from the prior version of the SAT.