Sat score first try - where would you stop?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I would take again - for some schools there is a minimum cutoff of 1520 to even have application read, even though they don't say that online

There is no such cutoff anywhere in the US.

+1

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I would take again - for some schools there is a minimum cutoff of 1520 to even have application read, even though they don't say that online

There is no such cutoff anywhere in the US.

Of course there is. First step is the apps are culled by a computer algorithm that of course have a baseline SAT/GPA. No school is reading 60k applications individually.

Back to the original question.
Kid took SAT got 1530 first try. Wanted to take again to try to get a perfect score (they did not prep for the 1530) -- mom and dads advice was don't study for retake ... spend time enjoying your senior year of high school!!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I would take again - for some schools there is a minimum cutoff of 1520 to even have application read, even though they don't say that online

There is no such cutoff anywhere in the US.

Of course there is. First step is the apps are culled by a computer algorithm that of course have a baseline SAT/GPA. No school is reading 60k applications individually.

Back to the original question.
Kid took SAT got 1530 first try. Wanted to take again to try to get a perfect score (they did not prep for the 1530) -- mom and dads advice was don't study for retake ... spend time enjoying your senior year of high school!!

You are missing the point. Yes, everyone here knows that schools trash thousands of applications that clearly fall below their academic standards. But PP is saying that the cutoff is at 1520. What school has a cutoff at 1520? I don't believe that exists. Dartmouth is extremely selective and their reporting shows that kids who are from under-resourced areas but still manage to score 1400 or above should submit their scores.

1520 is way too high of a threshold for any school.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I would take again - for some schools there is a minimum cutoff of 1520 to even have application read, even though they don't say that online

There is no such cutoff anywhere in the US.

Of course there is. First step is the apps are culled by a computer algorithm that of course have a baseline SAT/GPA. No school is reading 60k applications individually.

Back to the original question.
Kid took SAT got 1530 first try. Wanted to take again to try to get a perfect score (they did not prep for the 1530) -- mom and dads advice was don't study for retake ... spend time enjoying your senior year of high school!!

Did the kid retake? What was the final number?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I would take again - for some schools there is a minimum cutoff of 1520 to even have application read, even though they don't say that online

There is no such cutoff anywhere in the US.

Of course there is. First step is the apps are culled by a computer algorithm that of course have a baseline SAT/GPA. No school is reading 60k applications individually.

Back to the original question.
Kid took SAT got 1530 first try. Wanted to take again to try to get a perfect score (they did not prep for the 1530) -- mom and dads advice was don't study for retake ... spend time enjoying your senior year of high school!!

You are missing the point. Yes, everyone here knows that schools trash thousands of applications that clearly fall below their academic standards. But PP is saying that the cutoff is at 1520. What school has a cutoff at 1520? I don't believe that exists. Dartmouth is extremely selective and their reporting shows that kids who are from under-resourced areas but still manage to score 1400 or above should submit their scores.

1520 is way too high of a threshold for any school.

+1

[Anonymous]

If your kid is a junior and does not have any anxiety or resistance to retaking it, I say go for it. Best time would be in March, before AP studying gegibs, or next August.

If your kid is a senior, I say let it be. There are more important things to focus on this fall, including staying balanced and relaxed.

[Anonymous]

Both of mine were one and done with over 700 in each category as recommended by CC. Neither got over 1500. Both got merit aid.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:If your child is aiming for a top 20 or t50, what score on first try would you recommend they stop?

So for example, if they got a 1500 on first try, would you encourage them to try again or would you encourage them to be done?

Depends on a lot of things. How did they do in their area of strength? (For MIT math should be as high as possible.)

How does the kid feel about it? Do they feel like they did their best or could do better? Does the score match their practice tests? How much did they prepare?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:1520+ is one and done IMO. No benefit after that.

I would say it's about 1520 or 1530 because that's the top 1% I believe and the equivalent to ACT 35.

Would also add that I would not encourage taking more than 3 times unless your kid really has nothing better to do. Studies have shown that scores are not likely to go up much after 3 times.

Depends do those studies factor in kids who have been taking it since 7 and 8th grade?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I would take again - for some schools there is a minimum cutoff of 1520 to even have application read, even though they don't say that online

There is no such cutoff anywhere in the US.

Of course there is. First step is the apps are culled by a computer algorithm that of course have a baseline SAT/GPA. No school is reading 60k applications individually.

Back to the original question.
Kid took SAT got 1530 first try. Wanted to take again to try to get a perfect score (they did not prep for the 1530) -- mom and dads advice was don't study for retake ... spend time enjoying your senior year of high school!!

Did the kid retake? What was the final number?

Kid did not retake. One and done.

[Anonymous]

People post here about things they know nothing about.

NO school has cutoff at 1520. NONE.

And, when super-scoring, once you submit official scores, the AO will see all four scores - both scores in English and in Math. But when you self-report, they only see the best scores in English and Math, those that you report yourself.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:People post here about things they know nothing about.

NO school has cutoff at 1520. NONE.

And, when super-scoring, once you submit official scores, the AO will see all four scores - both scores in English and in Math. But when you self-report, they only see the best scores in English and Math, those that you report yourself.

I would guess that the apps are sorted based on test scores and gpa - pile A: strong look pile starts at 1550+ and 4.0 from known HS (for example) … and on from there. No one is tossing a 1520 but there are certainly “cutoffs”. Every school is using a sorting mechanism/algorithm. There are THOUSANDS of applications with 1500+ / 4.0 stats.

That being said, I wouldn’t retake with a 1520. That’s a great score! Congrats!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:MIT dean of admission said don't bother to retake if over 1550.

Link/source? So if they have two identical students, one with 1560 and one with 1600, they roll a die? Or they take the 1600? Do they prescreen with a cutoff, and then drop the score from consideration?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:MIT dean of admission said don't bother to retake if over 1550.

Link/source? So if they have two identical students, one with 1560 and one with 1600, they roll a die? Or they take the 1600? Do they prescreen with a cutoff, and then drop the score from consideration?

It’s a threshold. Here’s the MIT director of admissions talking about it on that Dartmouth podcast:

we find that testing is helpful because we have found that at MIT it's predictive. Maybe that's because when students come to school here, they take tests and that's one of the ways that they get through our curriculum. And so we do find that it's helpful and we want to have confidence in every student we admit. I do think that even at a place like MIT where again we're going to be requiring tests again, that testing has an outsized view in most students' minds about how important it actually is. * * * It's one of the pieces of an application that gives us an indicator as to how well a student is going to do in our curriculum. And once we have confidence that a student is going to do fine and thrive in our curriculum, we don't use the tests to make decisions. So we don't make decisions by test score. So we don't say, hey, this student has a higher test score than that student, therefore we'll admit this student over that student. All of the other things that we might look at about a student's motivation, their interests, those things are how we ultimately make decisions, not based on your tests.

https://admissions.dartmouth.edu/https%3A/admissions.dartmouth.edu/follow/admissions-beat-podcast/admissions-beat-s2e3-transcript

[Anonymous]

I’d leave it to them - whatever they want. A kid who’s aiming at those schools should be mature enough to have autonomy over those types of decisions.

Some kids would be stressed by the idea of taking it again. Others might find it a bit comforting - like they’re asserting a bit of extra “control” over a completely unpredictable process.