Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Assuming a kid wants to attend a college in the top 10. Is a 1590 or 1600 more helpful than a score in the range of 1530-1560? And is a 1600 better than a 1590?
Does it depend on his high school?

Omfg, how many threads are there about "higher" SAT scores. Can't you search? Look at College Board's site for percentiles. If a 1450 and 1550 are both 99th percentile, give Larlo a f ing break and not let him take the test again. Geez, are parents in DMV ALL like this?!

Except the 99th percentile doesn't begin until 1530.

Anonymous wrote:I agree most Ivies don't care much beyond a certain threshold. Major interest, ECs, regional diversity and overall narrative matter more. I think it's the state schools that focus heavily on test scores as a discriminator. The only kids I know who got UMD honors college invites last cycle had perfect test scores. (Anecdata, I know).

This belief is contradicted at least by Dartmouth and the data that was released.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Assuming a kid wants to attend a college in the top 10. Is a 1590 or 1600 more helpful than a score in the range of 1530-1560? And is a 1600 better than a 1590?
Does it depend on his high school?

Omfg, how many threads are there about "higher" SAT scores. Can't you search? Look at College Board's site for percentiles. If a 1450 and 1550 are both 99th percentile, give Larlo a f ing break and not let him take the test again. Geez, are parents in DMV ALL like this?!

OP is asking for T10 admissions. She is not asking without context.

This is definitely not true for T10. This year around, 1450 stands no (zero!) chance for T10 unhooked no spike.

Anonymous wrote:Assuming a kid wants to attend a college in the top 10. Is a 1590 or 1600 more helpful than a score in the range of 1530-1560? And is a 1600 better than a 1590?
Does it depend on his high school?

Omfg, how many threads are there about "higher" SAT scores. Can't you search? Look at College Board's site for percentiles. If a 1450 and 1550 are both 99th percentile, give Larlo a f ing break and not let him take the test again. Geez, are parents in DMV ALL like this?!

Anonymous wrote:I have naviance data of past 3 years from a selective school, not dmv area, and not a famous feeder private or famous magnet school. When I look at the plots from the T10 applications, I don’t see differences in outcome for the two ends of the 1500-1600 range. The few kids who got into multiple highly ranked schools came from the lower end of this range, probably because they had compelling extracurricular achievements or strong leadership. It is definitely not worth maximizing the SAT scores above a certain point.

And contrary to the recent post claiming that kids with 1530+ will likely get into a t20 school, I don’t see our school data reflecting this claim at all. The 1530+ kids are just fine wherever they end up and will be very successful I’m sure, but they are hardly a shoe-in at t20 schools. Our t20 matriculation rate is a lot lower than our number of high scoring kids (we have a lot). I see a lot of red X’s even for 1550+ kids. Heck, even for the perfect scorers.

Most of the T10 admits at your school are hooked?

At non-feeders, t10 admits are rare for unhooked.

At feeders, t10 admits become possible for high stats.

I agree most Ivies don't care much beyond a certain threshold. Major interest, ECs, regional diversity and overall narrative matter more. I think it's the state schools that focus heavily on test scores as a discriminator. The only kids I know who got UMD honors college invites last cycle had perfect test scores. (Anecdata, I know).

At our private school, a high test score is important internally in some situation.

The counselor would practice heavy steering at our private if an applicant's academics falls below 50%tile of previously admitted students from our school.

Internally, if one's gpa is in the lower 25%tile of previously admitted students from our school, it is strongly advised/steered away from that school.

However, if the test score makes into the top 25%tile of previously admitted students from our school, the counselor would support that application.

This is only an internal rule. It does NOT mean guarantee for admission, no at all.

But what it means is that you may now have a chance to apply to a school with reasonably strong counselor support.

Anonymous wrote:I always figured that anything that translates into a 36 ACT is treated the same, since nearly all schools say they treat the two tests the same. So that’s 1570. (https://www.act.org/content/act/en/products-and-services/the-act/scores/act-sat-concordance.html) If a school cares separately about the math section, it would be the same rule but applied only to the math section.

Per the concordance table you provided, a 36 ACT converts to a 1590 SAT.

I have naviance data of past 3 years from a selective school, not dmv area, and not a famous feeder private or famous magnet school. When I look at the plots from the T10 applications, I don’t see differences in outcome for the two ends of the 1500-1600 range. The few kids who got into multiple highly ranked schools came from the lower end of this range, probably because they had compelling extracurricular achievements or strong leadership. It is definitely not worth maximizing the SAT scores above a certain point.

And contrary to the recent post claiming that kids with 1530+ will likely get into a t20 school, I don’t see our school data reflecting this claim at all. The 1530+ kids are just fine wherever they end up and will be very successful I’m sure, but they are hardly a shoe-in at t20 schools. Our t20 matriculation rate is a lot lower than our number of high scoring kids (we have a lot). I see a lot of red X’s even for 1550+ kids. Heck, even for the perfect scorers.

Yes, 1590.

Depends on the kid. Mine got 1510 on her second try. Third try score went down and she was burnt out so we just called it. It should be enough for what she wants - not trying for T10.

Anonymous wrote:My student was accepted to a HYP with a 1530. He was WL at Duke, which was test optional last year (he did submit the 1530) and was later admitted off the WL. Counselor thought that schools like Duke wanted to see a 1550+ because they feel the need to keep those averages as high as possible while HYP is more comfortable in its admissions strategy and doesn’t need to prove itself. Anything above 1500 is strong in their view.

Duke, Vandy, Washu, Chicago, at these schools, a high test score helps their image.

My student was accepted to a HYP with a 1530. He was WL at Duke, which was test optional last year (he did submit the 1530) and was later admitted off the WL. Counselor thought that schools like Duke wanted to see a 1550+ because they feel the need to keep those averages as high as possible while HYP is more comfortable in its admissions strategy and doesn’t need to prove itself. Anything above 1500 is strong in their view.

For my first kid, we thought 1500 plus was enough. But so many kids at our private have those scores. College counselor suggested 1550 plus are treated differently by colleges. Then CalTech released info that had 1570 plus in its own category.

In a few cases, generally for engineering programs, the math score is important. For the rest, no it does not matter. They are looking at the scores generally to see if the child is able to “do school” well. Stop giving the College Board all that money.