This probably sounds extremely pretentious, but seeing how common a perfect 800 is, I’m worried I might be at a disadvantage with my 780 when applying to T20s. I wouldn’t be concerned if it wasn’t directly related to my major, but I want to study math in college, and I feel that it may hold me back. I’m confident I didn’t lose points because of any conceptual error but I’m usually in a rush to finish early and consequently prone to silly mistakes.
For reference, I live outside the US and kind of just winged the SAT twice last nov. and dec. and got the same math score (though I improved my EBRW). In hindsight that may not have been the best decision, and now I have to figure out if its worth writing it for a third time.
If a college rejects you with a 780, they likely would have rejected you with an 800. SAT scores are just one part of the application. The difference between a 780 vs 800 is akin to a pimple on an elephant’s ass. You bigger challenge is that you are an international applicant.
It is not worth retaking if you are happy with the EBRW score. Focus on other aspects of the application. Good luck.
No, it is not worth taking the test a third time, especially because your score might end up going down. That would be a disadvantage if you apply to a college that requires all scores. An extra 10 or 20 points is not going to make any difference, in my opinion.
It won’t be the 780 that gets you rejected from top colleges. The colleges you intend to apply to use holistic admissions. Your competition will be fierce. There will be factors beyond your control that determine if you get in or not. There are much better uses of your time than spending another day at a test center.
That’s reassuring, but still hurts to miss out on the perfect 800. I’m not an international but yes, its probably a better use of my time figuring out something to do over summer anyway. Thank you!
my daughter took the SAT once in October 2019 and got a 790 on the math section (made a silly mistake). She was disappointed with the score as she is applying to engineering programs, but in the end decided not to retake, especially after covid outbreak.
Your math subscore may just be a careless mistake away from an 800. However, if you keep taking more tests and you still don’t get 800, it’d be harder to be considered as a careless mistake. If you’re happy with your EBRW subscore, don’t take it again. Besides, an 800 doesn’t signal your readiness as a math major anyway.
True, but its also one of the only hard stats I have to show colleges since SAT II scores probably won’t be considered next year. I am happy with my EBRW score (760), which was honestly higher than I expected but yes, If I do take the SAT again, I’m more worried about replicating my English score than aceing math. In any case, I’ve decided not to apply again. It might better anyway to start prepping for APs and strengthening ECs over summer.
780 is adequate for MIT and Caltech, very good for about 5 more schools, and excellent for literally every other university in the world.
Other than MIT and Caltech, I do not think that there are any other universities anywhere that have a median math SAT score this high. I just checked Harvard and Stanford both of which have a median of 770 according to Prepscholar. Princeton is 765 which completes the check on the top ranked 4 math programs in the US. I think that this was on the math part of the regular SAT rather than the SAT subject test.
Most of these schools do not admit by major, so the fact that you are a potential math major does not impact your chances.
Any top 20 university is a reach for nearly every student. However, if you do not get in it will not be because of your math SAT score.
I do understand that it can be frustrating to be that close to perfect and not quite getting there. However, this is not an issue for university acceptance. It is only an issue of wanting to be perfect for the sake of being perfect.
FWIW, 780 is below the 25th percentile at both MIT and Caltech. (Both 790)
If 780 is the same as 800, then is 760 the same as 780? Is 740 the same as 760?
I tend to disagree with the common “don’t worry about that negative data point, it doesn’t mean anything”. Everything is taken into account in an admissions file. At some point, the last 10 students are accepted and the next 10 students are not. There are many data points, so each grade, score, etc., has a small marginal impact. But it’s not zero.
I also disagree with “don’t take the test again because some schools want all of your scores” advice. I’ve found three top schools that require them, in the top 50 I’ve searched, and all say they’ll focus on the highest score. Any negative impact of two 780s and a 760 will be lower than the positive impact of an 800 and two 780s, IMO.
One thing I do agree with is that just “winging” a college admissions exam wasn’t a smart choice.
Caltech is test blind (not optional). Caltech should treat a 200 math, 780 math, and 800 math all the same way. MIT claims that there is nothing different about their process for higher math scores such as 7## vs 800, and instead the higher admit rate for 800s primarily relates to 800s being more likely to have other characteristics that MIT values. A full quote from MIT’s website is below:
there is really not a difference in our process between someone who scores, say, a 740 on the SAT math, and someone who scores an 800 on the SAT math. So why, as the commentor asks, is there such a difference in the admit rate? Aha! Clearly we DO prefer higher SAT scores!
Well no, we don’t. What we prefer are things which maycoincide with higher SAT scores. For example, a student who receives a gold medal at the IMO is probably more likely to score an 800 on the math SAT than a 740. But if we take an IMO medalist (with an 800) over random applicant X (with a 740), does that mean we preferred an 800 to a 740? No. It means we preferred the IMO medalist, who also happened to get an 800!
Caltech is test blind. @mitchris has said that a 780 is viewed as an 800. You can disagree with me and the college admissions officer, but I’ll stand by my earlier post.