How important is 1500 SAT for Top 50 schools (national/LAC)?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Is SAT of 1500 an important score to achieve (or exceed)? Or is 1480 or 1490 interchangeable? 1500 appears to be 99th percentile.

Does it matter if it's one sitting or is superscore as good (for schools that are not not MIT/georgetown)?

1500 is not needed for most of the T50. T15 yes usually needed.

It depends on your HS, your major, what else you have going for you.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Is SAT of 1500 an important score to achieve (or exceed)? Or is 1480 or 1490 interchangeable? 1500 appears to be 99th percentile.

Does it matter if it's one sitting or is superscore as good (for schools that are not not MIT/georgetown)?

1500 is not needed for most of the T50. T15 yes usually needed.

Correct - as you get to the back end of the T50 the averages are in the 1300s and the 75th percentile is still below 1500.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Not to hijack, but I read that the test was recalibrated in January 2025 and it is now more difficult to get 1500+. Is this true?

yes that is why so many people are going mental about things now that tests are becoming increasing more relevant and/or required.

crossing 1500 seems like an important differentiator in the application stage.

Yes, it is true. The digital SAT launched in 2023 (so what the current college class of '29 took as HS juniors and submitted last fall) is "adaptive" meaning it grades as you answer. The first modules of questions include easy, medium and hard questions. If you do well on this module you are steered to the harder second module, if you don't you are steered to the easier module. The max combined score for the easier module is around 1200 (I am not an expert but I think that is approximate). To break 1500 student has to be answering the harder questions correctly throughout to keep getting the hard questions.
I also think this could have implications for what submitting TO means with the digital SAT, i.e. will admissions officers worry that the score is 1300? Only the class of '29 applied with digital SAT and we don't have CDS data yet so keep that in mind when looking at TO data from prior years.

[Anonymous]

My DC's dream school has mean SAT of 1510 and median SAT of 1520. DC scored 1510.

Is 1510 submittable or should she retake again? She doesn't want to if possible to move on. Her GPA is 25th percentile for the school, and SAT seems close but just a hair below 50th percentile.

She definitely will not go TO but she is just tyring to figure out if she's done now or needs to retake another time?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:1530 is 99th now-due to tests being taken multiple times.
i think its very important, signed someone whos kid finally got above 1500 on 4th try-1550

PP where did your DC start score wise? TY!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:My DC's dream school has mean SAT of 1510 and median SAT of 1520. DC scored 1510.

Is 1510 submittable or should she retake again? She doesn't want to if possible to move on. Her GPA is 25th percentile for the school, and SAT seems close but just a hair below 50th percentile.

She definitely will not go TO but she is just tyring to figure out if she's done now or needs to retake another time?

If her practices tests suggest she could get to 1550+ she should retake. Otherwise that’s an awesome score and she should be proud of herself.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:My DC's dream school has mean SAT of 1510 and median SAT of 1520. DC scored 1510.

Is 1510 submittable or should she retake again? She doesn't want to if possible to move on. Her GPA is 25th percentile for the school, and SAT seems close but just a hair below 50th percentile.

She definitely will not go TO but she is just tyring to figure out if she's done now or needs to retake another time?

I'd let her decide, it is a lot of work and stress to re-take it. You'll never know what made the admissions difference either way. This will be judged by her in hindsight, let her know she is the only one who can decide where to put her limited time/resources at this point.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Not to hijack, but I read that the test was recalibrated in January 2025 and it is now more difficult to get 1500+. Is this true?

yes that is why so many people are going mental about things now that tests are becoming increasing more relevant and/or required.

crossing 1500 seems like an important differentiator in the application stage.

25 percent of the class of 2026 scored a 1500 or above at our private. I don’t think thus is necessarily correct.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Depends on the specific college, major, and what else your kid has on EC/awards (if they have national-level accolades, it matters less; if all they have is school clubs and leadership, it matters more).

For example, know several kids who got into Vanderbilt ED last 2 years from our private TO (school president leadership) bc a 14xx is not submittable there, but they had the other leadership that Vanderbilt desires.

Vandy loves test optional, I would not assume this applies to any other T20.

Agree.
In T25, the only schools I wouldn't submit a 1480/90 to would be Vanderbilt and WashU (only because both came out and said not to when the kid asked regional AO about a 33 directly).
Would submit to all other T25.

My kid got into Vanderbilt with a 1490. Submitted. But he was a class president kind of kid and an athlete - though not recruited at the D1 level, only D3.

I think the general rule is 1500 or a 34 gets you a look everywhere. But I would submit anything north of 1400 or 33, provided the rest of the app is great. Stanford too takes a lot of students that don't hit 1500. They look for other things once you hit a baseline.

I have no idea why Vanderbilt persists in being test optional. Pre-Covid, they had some of the highest scores in the country. Cynically, I'd say it's because they want to juice the number of apps. And they like the flexibility.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:1530 is 99th now-due to tests being taken multiple times.
i think its very important, signed someone whos kid finally got above 1500 on 4th try-1550

PP where did your DC start score wise? TY!

1360,1410 (V 690 for both and psat), 1450(V730) and now 1550 (760V/790M) from last winter to now-senior
only 3 practice tests done due to anxiety..i know... verbal was an amazing tutor!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Not to hijack, but I read that the test was recalibrated in January 2025 and it is now more difficult to get 1500+. Is this true?

yes that is why so many people are going mental about things now that tests are becoming increasing more relevant and/or required.

crossing 1500 seems like an important differentiator in the application stage.

25 percent of the class of 2026 scored a 1500 or above at our private. I don’t think thus is necessarily correct.

PP there is good and bad news in this. The good news is your kid is at an excellent school. The not so good news is that colleges will expect higher scores for all of the applicants from your school. Your schools naviance data will probably reflect this.

[Anonymous]

For a fine college, a 1480 can neatly suffice. There may be perhaps two dozen colleges for which a higher score may be expected in order to enhance an application.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Depends on the specific college, major, and what else your kid has on EC/awards (if they have national-level accolades, it matters less; if all they have is school clubs and leadership, it matters more).

For example, know several kids who got into Vanderbilt ED last 2 years from our private TO (school president leadership) bc a 14xx is not submittable there, but they had the other leadership that Vanderbilt desires.

Vandy loves test optional, I would not assume this applies to any other T20.

Agree.
In T25, the only schools I wouldn't submit a 1480/90 to would be Vanderbilt and WashU (only because both came out and said not to when the kid asked regional AO about a 33 directly).
Would submit to all other T25.

My kid got into Vanderbilt with a 1490. Submitted. But he was a class president kind of kid and an athlete - though not recruited at the D1 level, only D3.

I think the general rule is 1500 or a 34 gets you a look everywhere. But I would submit anything north of 1400 or 33, provided the rest of the app is great. Stanford too takes a lot of students that don't hit 1500. They look for other things once you hit a baseline.

I have no idea why Vanderbilt persists in being test optional. Pre-Covid, they had some of the highest scores in the country. Cynically, I'd say it's because they want to juice the number of apps. And they like the flexibility.

Was this in ED and what year?

[Anonymous]

For the love of God. Abolish the SAT already. It’s absurd the amount of wasted time and money people spend trying to score well on the test. Unless it’s the top Ivies, it truly does not matter at all. The amount of hoop jumping and “me I’m unique and special” essays and activities and test scoring nonsense is insane and not useful. There are families not willing to play this game anymore.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Depends on the specific college, major, and what else your kid has on EC/awards (if they have national-level accolades, it matters less; if all they have is school clubs and leadership, it matters more).

For example, know several kids who got into Vanderbilt ED last 2 years from our private TO (school president leadership) bc a 14xx is not submittable there, but they had the other leadership that Vanderbilt desires.

You forgot the single biggest determinant of how much it matters which is your HS and the results of other kids at your school applying to the same universities and colleges. That is the first cut.