Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:It’s not that 1500 is a problem. The question really is what other amazing qualities do you have to show for? Most people with lower scores don’t.

This.

It’s actually not difficult to “score” an application to see if it will get to committee or not.

What are the ECs?
Awards?
UwGPA?
Major
Public or private HS?

DP agree with this and what someone said earlier that it’s correlation not causation. Kids who easily score a higher SAT after just 1-2 tries without intense prep also tend to excel more effortlessly in music, ECs, school leadership. They get better teachers’ recs. Those things add up to a better overall package to present to committee.

It’s true no one brings an app to committee and say this kid got 1550+ so we should admit them, but if you pool together all the apps that scored 1550+, as a group their overall package would be much more compelling than a group you put together that scored 1450. There are individual outliers of course, but as a group, the 1550 kid will just be stronger overall. If that wasn’t true, they wouldn’t all be returning to test required when test optional increased their application fee revenues and lowered their accept rate. They know it’s not sustainable because they can see patterns of lower performance and faculty complaints tied to test optional. This also tells parents their lower score kids will have a higher chance of underperforming at a top college if most peers scored higher. Put prestige aside and don’t do this to your kid.

Anonymous wrote:It’s not that 1500 is a problem. The question really is what other amazing qualities do you have to show for? Most people with lower scores don’t.

This.

It’s actually not difficult to “score” an application to see if it will get to committee or not.

What are the ECs?
Awards?
UwGPA?
Major
Public or private HS?

Since the college application season is over, OP’s kid is likely a junior and I doubt they have already taken the SAT multiple times. Their score should improve without prep at the beginning of the summer. Depending on the score then, you can decide whether to retake it in August. But definitely don’t retake it after the summer. It’s creating unnecessary stress. And like this reply said, if they can’t get their target score by the senior year, they’re just not in that caliber.

If the 1500+ is the first try, sure you should retake. Don’t most kids increase their score after a couple tries?

But if it’s already after 3-4 tries or super scored to get to 1500, then don’t bother bc I have seen it backfire in more than one occasion. Some kids actually do worse by the 4th and 5th try due to testing fatigue and it could really sting their confidence. Also, as parents, we need to remember to put prestige aside. Do you really want to put your 1520 after 5 tries superscore kid in a room full of 1st try 1570 kids and make your DC compete like that for 4 years? Yeah yeah I know you’ll say athletes and donor kids also don’t have 1570 but they have other advantages and you know that’s true.

Plenty of kids do exceedingly well graduating from T25-100 colleges, including many at the top of their industries in our country. Give your DC room to spend time to cultivate other aspects of their app and their life, including their confidence and the innate knowledge that their parents think they and their accomplishments are enough.

Anonymous wrote:Retaking seems a low hanging fruit. Just 3 hours in a Saturday morning and the registration fee. My two DCs retook and both went from ~1500 to 1550+. Neither did prep. Sat is a number game.

One’s score naturally improves after a few months of learning in school. But if you have to ask whether retaking is worth it, it often means your kid needs studying to further improve the score. It’s much easier to improve from 1300 to 1450 than from 1500 to 1550+.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Here's a summary of the Dartmouth paper. The first chart is a bit hard to read, but for more-advantaged students, those with a 1500 SAT had about a 6% chance of admissions while those at 1550 had about a 10% chance. So meaningful. Note, this isn't all-else-equal, meaning that the 1550 kids might have been stronger in other areas. Still, which would you rather be?

I'd re-take IF I thought a higher score was possible. But people also reach their limits and hitting your head against the ceiling may not be helpful emotionally.

https://www.nber.org/digest/202504/test-optional-policies-and-disadvantaged-students?page=1&perPage=50

Anonymous wrote:On this forum I have seen posts claiming that Dartmouth published their data that demonstrated how incremental changes after 1500 did lead to higher acceptance rate at Dartmouth. One can argue its correlation as opposed to causation, but as an engineering faculty for many years I believe there is a tangible difference in how fast/well a new concept is learned and in exam performance between a student with a 780 math and another with a 720 assuming these scores are their ceiling after multiple attempts and assuming they have worked reasonably hard in the class.

It definitely looks correlation not causation. The same trend you described is also observed when scores are omitted (solid red line). The increase in admit rate is due to the other parts of the application.

Actually, for the 1525+ score range, the admit rate is decreasing as the score increases (when scores are not reported).

It’s also unclear why some applicants would choose to not report a 1525+ score.

For those who selectively pointed out the same trends between the blue and red line segments for the score range 1475-1525, why are the opposing trends for scores 1525+ ignored? I suspect the sample size for “not reporting a 1525+ score” is very small?

Anonymous wrote:It’s a game of inches and the SAT is scored out of 1600, not 1500.

Do you really want to count on a committee saying, ‘well that 1500 is as good as a 1570?’

Strength is strength. If retaking doesn’t require sacrifice of more critical activities, then why wouldn’t you?

Well this is the key right? Distinction in ECs and awards matters far more.

It’s a game of inches and the SAT is scored out of 1600, not 1500.

Do you really want to count on a committee saying, ‘well that 1500 is as good as a 1570?’

Strength is strength. If retaking doesn’t require sacrifice of more critical activities, then why wouldn’t you?

Retaking seems a low hanging fruit. Just 3 hours in a Saturday morning and the registration fee. My two DCs retook and both went from ~1500 to 1550+. Neither did prep. Sat is a number game.

Anonymous wrote:It’s not that 1500 is a problem. The question really is what other amazing qualities do you have to show for? Most people with lower scores don’t.

+1 If you have exceptional ECs and accomplishments, the 1500 is not a problem with any elite school (except for tech schools). It's more that it's hard to stand out in a field of accomplished candidates, especially in the DMV. But essays and rec letters are far more important than a 1550 vs. a 1500. It's a single data point in holistic admissions, and not a terribly important one once you meet the threshold.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I highly doubt it. Once you cross the cutoff, they don’t look at your test score anymore. They review the rest of your application. Same with GPA.

Any anecdote is just correlation rather than causation. High scorers probably also tend to have stronger applications. That doesn’t mean the score caused it.

Cite please because this is not true. The upper scores are critical even to the T25 because they report them to CDS, ED, USNWR, other rankings service, and to alums. Look at the comments above about “buckets” at MIT and CalTech of 1580-1600. This is also where merit scholarships come in. Once my kid hit 35, then a 36, [b]the schools started making unsolicited offers for full tuition packages based upon info he had provided in the common app.

But highly ranked/selective schools did not.

You just need to do your homework. Study the CDS for each school and aim for the 75th+ percentile. For all T10 this likely means taking it again.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Here's a summary of the Dartmouth paper. The first chart is a bit hard to read, but for more-advantaged students, those with a 1500 SAT had about a 6% chance of admissions while those at 1550 had about a 10% chance. So meaningful. Note, this isn't all-else-equal, meaning that the 1550 kids might have been stronger in other areas. Still, which would you rather be?

I'd re-take IF I thought a higher score was possible. But people also reach their limits and hitting your head against the ceiling may not be helpful emotionally.

https://www.nber.org/digest/202504/test-optional-policies-and-disadvantaged-students?page=1&perPage=50

Anonymous wrote:On this forum I have seen posts claiming that Dartmouth published their data that demonstrated how incremental changes after 1500 did lead to higher acceptance rate at Dartmouth. One can argue its correlation as opposed to causation, but as an engineering faculty for many years I believe there is a tangible difference in how fast/well a new concept is learned and in exam performance between a student with a 780 math and another with a 720 assuming these scores are their ceiling after multiple attempts and assuming they have worked reasonably hard in the class.

It definitely looks correlation not causation. The same trend you described is also observed when scores are omitted (solid red line). The increase in admit rate is due to the other parts of the application.

THIS!

Further, you can compare red solid line with red dash line. It couldn't be more clear.
The jump in admit rate is significant in red solid line after 1475+. The jump in admit rate is insignificant in red dash line 1475+.
Excluding test scores, the advantaged students have a more compelling application than the disadvantaged students.

It’s not that 1500 is a problem. The question really is what other amazing qualities do you have to show for? Most people with lower scores don’t.

Anonymous wrote:Maybe, but I actually doubt it’s just correlation. These days almost all the top applicants will have great GPAs. Could ECs correlate with SAT scores? Sure. But again, if it’s feasible to get to 1550, I’d got for it. I can’t think of anything else you could do with that level of time/effort that’s going to aid your application that much.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Here's a summary of the Dartmouth paper. The first chart is a bit hard to read, but for more-advantaged students, those with a 1500 SAT had about a 6% chance of admissions while those at 1550 had about a 10% chance. So meaningful. Note, this isn't all-else-equal, meaning that the 1550 kids might have been stronger in other areas. Still, which would you rather be?

I'd re-take IF I thought a higher score was possible. But people also reach their limits and hitting your head against the ceiling may not be helpful emotionally.

https://www.nber.org/digest/202504/test-optional-policies-and-disadvantaged-students?page=1&perPage=50

Anonymous wrote:On this forum I have seen posts claiming that Dartmouth published their data that demonstrated how incremental changes after 1500 did lead to higher acceptance rate at Dartmouth. One can argue its correlation as opposed to causation, but as an engineering faculty for many years I believe there is a tangible difference in how fast/well a new concept is learned and in exam performance between a student with a 780 math and another with a 720 assuming these scores are their ceiling after multiple attempts and assuming they have worked reasonably hard in the class.

It definitely looks correlation not causation. The same trend you described is also observed when scores are omitted (solid red line). The increase in admit rate is due to the other parts of the application.

It’s difficult to spin this one. The red solid line 1475+ sees a huge jump in admit rate. Clearly there is a main factor other than test score that is driving it. You can choose to be blind but anyone with some basic scientific training would not ignore it.