Does a high test score give you a bump in college admission?

[Anonymous]

If you have a decent application package, yes it provide a bump to your application. I have not seen anyone with that score not accepted to T20. However, T5 is still a reach.

[Anonymous]

This post was a s/o joke, people

[Anonymous]

I think top schools see a 1500+ and yawn these days. They really want to see the applicant holistically. EC's EC's EC's Sports Sports etc. Kid needs to stand out to make them interested.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I think top schools see a 1500+ and yawn these days. They really want to see the applicant holistically. EC's EC's EC's Sports Sports etc. Kid needs to stand out to make them interested.

I disagree. Go look at the average SAT scores in test required days before covid.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:If you don’t have the ECs, a 1580 is not going to cure the deficiency, they will still reject you.

If you are from a grade inflated public high school, it will show AO that additional academic strength differentiating you from the other 100 straight A students from your school.

If your school average is 1300, your 1570 sets you apart from your classmates.

If your GPA is slightly lower than your competitors in the school, your high score will compensate for that.

Other than that, no. Top colleges reject so many 1600 every year.

Yes to all of this.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:If you don’t have the ECs, a 1580 is not going to cure the deficiency, they will still reject you.

If you are from a grade inflated public high school, it will show AO that additional academic strength differentiating you from the other 100 straight A students from your school.

If your school average is 1300, your 1570 sets you apart from your classmates.

If your GPA is slightly lower than your competitors in the school, your high score will compensate for that.

Other than that, no. Top colleges reject so many 1600 every year.

True, but test required changes who gets the lottery ticket. Still need great EC's but kids with great EC's and poor scores may not competing in the lottery at certain schools.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Seriously, OP. Please get off of DCUM and go and study for another exam or read a book or clean you room. We're not here to validate your insecurities.

What's that?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:No one except AO knows for sure OP which is pretty annoying. You can probably figure out a threshold for less competitive schools from Naviance data. I don’t think you can figure anything out for the most competitive schools. It also can be that they look at it relative to your classmates. For example, for TJ they might think 1500 to be too low but exceptional for a rural VA school.

And even AOs have a very difficult time when looking at hundreds or thousands of applicants with very comparable stats.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:No one except AO knows for sure OP which is pretty annoying. You can probably figure out a threshold for less competitive schools from Naviance data. I don’t think you can figure anything out for the most competitive schools. It also can be that they look at it relative to your classmates. For example, for TJ they might think 1500 to be too low but exceptional for a rural VA school.

TJ used to average at 1550, but the number goes down quite a bit recently. Believe it’s now under 1500.