<p>You don’t need to take the SAT again. For an international, you’re fine. Your first term results will matter more, and there are only so many hours in the day. Don’t cut on sleep for the SAT.
However, you can take 3 tests on the same date, so why don’t you pick another SAT Subject for the day you take Biology and Chem? Math2 is an easy choice, as is a foreign language (NOT your native language).
Pay close attention to your essays, especially the supplements’. Pay attention to “fit”. Dartmouth and Colgate are very different from Oberlin and Vassar, for example. Brown and Penn are opposites. Figure out what you want: preprofessional (learning things that’ll be useful to get a job) or learning for learning’s sake (you just enjoy learning stuff even if you’ll never use it professionally)? Students who have many causes they’re passionate about and are willing to protest for - and what about : a campus where students routinely rpotest abortion clinics does NOT have the same vibe as a campus where students protest against sweatshops, for example -, or students who don’t really care about politics - and how much, ie. how vocal and radical would you feel comfortable with? How important to you is it that there are drugs -or not- on campus, “drinking” (which in the US means “getting very drunk on cheap beer”) -or not-, that there’s a substance-free dorm, a quiet dorm? Are you okay with co-ed dorms, and coed in what way: by room, with single-sex or coed bathrooms, coed by floor?
You may want to invest in a book such as “Princeton’s 378 best colleges” or “Fiske Guide” to look at what the schools stand for.
On this forum, look under the colleges’ names for their specificities.
Use the system I gave you yesterday to select 10 schools, then add 10 schools from your original list, focusing on “fit”.
You’re right, luck plays a part in it, but for it to “work” you need to demonstrate “fit”, ie., create a reaction like “you’re exactly the kind of personality we want on this campus”. If you’re staunchly anti-frats and anti-drinking, Darmouth admission officers will wonder why you’re applying for example. If you’re prolife and Teaparty conservative, Oberlin may not be the best fit, and if you’re very interested in boycotting anything Israeli Brandeis may not be the best place for you to apply. (Those are broad examples.)
Finally, look up (CommonApp website) which schools are “commonapp exclusive”: it means all others allow you to apply directly from their website and it doesn’t count as part of the 20 allowed on the CommonApp. Of course you have to go through the extra effort of completing the application on their website, but the questions are basically the same so it’s not a LOT of work.
Note: you can only apply to Berea if your family makes about $4,000/month or less.</p>