Anonymous
09/27/2025 10:12
Subject: How important is 1500 SAT for Top 50 schools (national/LAC)?
Anonymous wrote:DD has a 1550 superscore but we’re still nervous about where she will get in as her schedule hasn’t been quite as difficult as some other students. Only 9 APs and 1 dual enrollment, no AP Calc, no AP Bio or AP Chem. But she got all 5s on the APs she took.
Chances good at Top 25?
Depending on her GPA, chances good at top 25. 9 APs/DE is totally fine. Sounds like she's not going for STEM so not taking those APs for humanities major is fine. For top 10-15 you may need 1550 SAT but for top 25-30 anything over 1500 is fantastic.
Anonymous
09/27/2025 10:08
Subject: How important is 1500 SAT for Top 50 schools (national/LAC)?
DD has a 1550 superscore but we’re still nervous about where she will get in as her schedule hasn’t been quite as difficult as some other students. Only 9 APs and 1 dual enrollment, no AP Calc, no AP Bio or AP Chem. But she got all 5s on the APs she took.
Chances good at Top 25?
Chances good at Top 25?
Anonymous
09/27/2025 10:06
Subject: How important is 1500 SAT for Top 50 schools (national/LAC)?
Anonymous wrote:Anonymous wrote:Anonymous wrote:Anonymous wrote:Anonymous wrote: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.
Over 700 in each is fine for all but the very top colleges.
Disagree. last year’s incoming class at W&M had a 1530 at the 75th percentile and a 1520 at UVA. Thats what you should be aiming for (also a gpa of 4.6) if white and unhooked and applying from DMV
If the school is still TO than aim for 25th %ile or higher. If no longer TO, aim for median/mean (50th).
Agree that if the school is still TO, then submit if around the 25th percentile or higher.
If no longer TO, you have no choice but to submit; the choice is whether to apply or not apply. You stop testing when you think you have your highest score and craft your college list accordingly.
+1
Anonymous
09/27/2025 09:46
Subject: How important is 1500 SAT for Top 50 schools (national/LAC)?
Anonymous wrote:Anonymous wrote:Anonymous wrote:Anonymous wrote: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.
Over 700 in each is fine for all but the very top colleges.
Disagree. last year’s incoming class at W&M had a 1530 at the 75th percentile and a 1520 at UVA. Thats what you should be aiming for (also a gpa of 4.6) if white and unhooked and applying from DMV
If the school is still TO than aim for 25th %ile or higher. If no longer TO, aim for median/mean (50th).
Agree that if the school is still TO, then submit if around the 25th percentile or higher.
If no longer TO, you have no choice but to submit; the choice is whether to apply or not apply. You stop testing when you think you have your highest score and craft your college list accordingly.
Anonymous
09/26/2025 22:50
Subject: How important is 1500 SAT for Top 50 schools (national/LAC)?
Anonymous wrote:Anonymous wrote:Anonymous wrote: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.
Over 700 in each is fine for all but the very top colleges.
Disagree. last year’s incoming class at W&M had a 1530 at the 75th percentile and a 1520 at UVA. Thats what you should be aiming for (also a gpa of 4.6) if white and unhooked and applying from DMV
Come on. UVA takes so many kids TO that those scores you are listing are a joke.
Anonymous
09/26/2025 21:51
Subject: How important is 1500 SAT for Top 50 schools (national/LAC)?
Anonymous wrote:The best part about a 1500 is that it’s not good enough for most T15s but if you got down the scale, colleges will ding these kids because they assume they are being applied to as the safeties and schools want to manage yield. At least that’s what I see in my kids Naviance scattergrams.
My DS jokingly suggested that for a couple of his safety schools maybe he should report his score from his first try at the SAT and leave the 1500 out. These schools are just absurd.
you sound absurd tbh.
Anonymous
09/26/2025 20:55
Subject: How important is 1500 SAT for Top 50 schools (national/LAC)?
The best part about a 1500 is that it’s not good enough for most T15s but if you got down the scale, colleges will ding these kids because they assume they are being applied to as the safeties and schools want to manage yield. At least that’s what I see in my kids Naviance scattergrams.
My DS jokingly suggested that for a couple of his safety schools maybe he should report his score from his first try at the SAT and leave the 1500 out. These schools are just absurd.
My DS jokingly suggested that for a couple of his safety schools maybe he should report his score from his first try at the SAT and leave the 1500 out. These schools are just absurd.
Anonymous
09/26/2025 20:21
Subject: How important is 1500 SAT for Top 50 schools (national/LAC)?
Anonymous wrote:Anonymous wrote: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.
Over 700 in each is fine for all but the very top colleges.
Try..let's say...750 in each. 🙂
Anonymous
09/26/2025 20:19
Subject: How important is 1500 SAT for Top 50 schools (national/LAC)?
Anonymous wrote:DD scored 1530 and thought she was done but CC recommended aiming for >1550 as she was applying to most selective schools. Unfortunately, next score went down.
She was accepted to 7/8 T16-50 and 1/8 T15. deferred/rejected from T15 legacy school and otherwise unhooked. so anecdotally, i do think 1500+ matters for T50 and 1550+ for T15.
congrats to your DD!
what college did she choose to go to ultimately and what was the deciding factor?
Anonymous
09/26/2025 20:15
Subject: How important is 1500 SAT for Top 50 schools (national/LAC)?
DD scored 1530 and thought she was done but CC recommended aiming for >1550 as she was applying to most selective schools. Unfortunately, next score went down.
She was accepted to 7/8 T16-50 and 1/8 T15. deferred/rejected from T15 legacy school and otherwise unhooked. so anecdotally, i do think 1500+ matters for T50 and 1550+ for T15.
She was accepted to 7/8 T16-50 and 1/8 T15. deferred/rejected from T15 legacy school and otherwise unhooked. so anecdotally, i do think 1500+ matters for T50 and 1550+ for T15.
Anonymous
09/26/2025 20:14
Subject: How important is 1500 SAT for Top 50 schools (national/LAC)?
Anonymous wrote:Anonymous wrote:Anonymous wrote:Anonymous wrote: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.
Over 700 in each is fine for all but the very top colleges.
Disagree. last year’s incoming class at W&M had a 1530 at the 75th percentile and a 1520 at UVA. Thats what you should be aiming for (also a gpa of 4.6) if white and unhooked and applying from DMV
If the school is still TO than aim for 25th %ile or higher. If no longer TO, aim for median/mean (50th).
Agreed. These are also important benchmarks to clear more generally, depending on how competitive school admission is:
1350 - 90th percentile
1440 - 95th percentile
1510 - 99th percentile
Anonymous
09/26/2025 20:11
Subject: How important is 1500 SAT for Top 50 schools (national/LAC)?
Anonymous wrote:Anonymous wrote:Anonymous wrote: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.
Over 700 in each is fine for all but the very top colleges.
Disagree. last year’s incoming class at W&M had a 1530 at the 75th percentile and a 1520 at UVA. Thats what you should be aiming for (also a gpa of 4.6) if white and unhooked and applying from DMV
If the school is still TO than aim for 25th %ile or higher. If no longer TO, aim for median/mean (50th).
Anonymous
09/26/2025 19:37
Subject: Re:How important is 1500 SAT for Top 50 schools (national/LAC)?
Not important at all for the test blind ones.
Anonymous
09/26/2025 19:23
Subject: How important is 1500 SAT for Top 50 schools (national/LAC)?
Anonymous wrote:Anonymous wrote: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.
Over 700 in each is fine for all but the very top colleges.
Disagree. last year’s incoming class at W&M had a 1530 at the 75th percentile and a 1520 at UVA. Thats what you should be aiming for (also a gpa of 4.6) if white and unhooked and applying from DMV
Anonymous
09/26/2025 18:59
Subject: How important is 1500 SAT for Top 50 schools (national/LAC)?
Anonymous wrote:Anonymous wrote: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.
+1
1510 is a great score! At this point, it’s up to her where she wants to spend her time and at what cost. For some kids, taking it again would be very stressful. For others, it would not, especially knowing it’s all upside with a 1510.
Let her choose what’s best for her so she feels ownership of the results.
PP here. DD has thought about it and decided to stop the madness and not retake. We're doing a celebration party tomorrow night at her favorite restaurant followed by her two besties sleeping over!