bleach340

I made a 2280 on my SAT. 770 M, 800 CR, and 710 W.

This summer I have the possibility of getting a research paper published in a journal as primary author. Undoubtedly if I want to score my target of 2360-2400 I'm gonna have to work around 40 hours. Would those hours be better spent if I put them towards improving my chance of getting a publication? The thing is even if I do not retake SAT there is a substantial chance I may not get any publication anyway.

Please keep in mind I am asking in terms of competitive college admissions namely for schools like Stanford and MIT.

And yes I'd rather spend my summer researching (I love research lol as nerdy as that may sound). Standardized tests are just a pain in the hind side anyway.

marvin100

I recommend doing both, and taking copious mock exams (real released tests) to see if you're going to keep your excellent M & CR scores and raise your so-so W score. If you can't do both, then the research will probably be a better choice.

bleach340

thanks for your help. its just that my research would be a good deal better certainly if I could spend that extra SAT time on it.

eagles94

Definately do both because you probably missed around 5-10 questions and you can bring that up by being more careful and work on w.

rspence

I would definitely go for the research. A 2400's not really going to stand out much at MIT, and publishing a research paper looks far more impressive. I'm enrolling to MIT for the 2012-2013 year and I can tell they'd rather have people who have done research or are really dedicated to something rather than 2400-students with no life outside school.

If you want to retake the SAT again, sure. However you'll also have to take the subject tests for MIT admission.

AKShockwave

Here's the thing. You probably only missed like 1 or 2 math problems, so you've perfected that section. Same with CR obviously. And luckily, writing is (in my humble opinion) very easy to increase. See, here's what you do (or what I did): read The Elements of Style. I read it for my AP Lang class and that was the only studying for the writing section I did at all and it boosted my score from 600 sophomore year to 800 writing score. That's the only prep I did, and it wasn't even intentional prep. Of course, all the grammar I learned in AP Lang probably helped too, but really it wasn't that hard.

So read that, scrutinize it, then take a practice test to see where your writing score is at. If it's not where you want it then start studying a bit. But I don't think you'd need to work 40 hours; you probably wouldn't need to work more than a few hours a week.

And while i'm at it I might as well give a few hints:
1. Don't worry about all the technical stuff like which grammar rule it violates or whatever. These just tend to confuse. Just use small, easy tips in place of carefully dissecting the structure.
2. This helped me a lot. You may not have a problem with it, but I'll tell you anyway. When you are trying to determine whether it should be something like "Joe and I" or "Joe and me" just think of it in terms of us and we. I'm assuming you're good enough at grammar to know when to use us vs. we so you can do the same thing with I and me. replace the plural "Joe and I" or "Joe and me" with "us" or "we", whichever one makes sense. If it's we, use I. If it's us, use me. Me rhymes with we -- wrong, use this to remember which singular noun goes with which plural noun.
3. Well I don't really have a third tip, just go read Erica Meltzer's blog if you really need help. It's very helpful.

So I just gave you a load of probably useless info. But seriously, I don't think you would need to study 40 hours a week to get just your writing score up. Just spend most of your time researching, and when you have time to break from research then just do a bit of studying.

I feel like you could easily fit both in. If you really believe you need to study 40 hours (that is a lot of studying) just to raise your writing score then I'd say it's not worth it though. Your SAT score is certainly good enough, at this point research would look way better. If you really have to choose one or the other, go with research no doubt.

bleach340

Thanks for all your advice guys especially AKShockwave. I think like you said I'll go for both. The research publication is not a surety before college admissions anyway.

TrysBaldai

hey, what is your research paper on?

bleach340

It's about iron oxide loaded liposomes. Why?

craiggonzales

Why is there a substantial chance you won't get your paper published? Wouldn't MIT/Stanford prefer a 2280 + published student than a 2400 + unpublished?

If you want to be competitive in the college admissions process, you need to be a rockstar. Publishing makes you a rockstar. You need to look up "Cal Newport". He is PhD MIT CS and wrote books and blogs about superstars like you getting into Stanford and MIT with less-than-awesome SAT scores. He calls it the Superstar Effect.

CG

AKShockwave

^Truth. Cal Newport is the greatest, and his blog is awesome too.

And a 2280 is already more than sufficient for top schools. A published paper would look way better than a 2400 SAT. The only reason I say OP should retake is because writing is easy to rise your score in and shouldn't take much work at all, and he/she already got math down too (770 is like minus 1-2 questions). So it really wouldn't be that difficult to raise the score, and it would be much more impressive to have the 2400 SAT and the published paper.

TrysBaldai

Hey, do you now any peers who have published a paper in economics?

bleach340

Economics is quite a difficult field to publish a paper in because it is mostly theory or involves extremely complex scenarios. Even in the field of biology, I would advise high school students to stay in the hands-on lab area (along with a bit of theory) rather than do simulation work. However if you feel like you are up for it or just want to get some exposure, then I'm sure if you emailed, spammed *cough cough*, some professors in economics you could get an internship.

BigIs

Do the research. MIT knows the same thing everyone on this site does -- the difference between a 2280 and a 2400 is only a few questions, so they're not going to look at the scores that differently. However, the demonstrated ability to do research and publish a paper, especially on a current "hot" topic such as iron oxide loaded liposomes, will certainly make you stand out, especially if you are the principal author and not a "me, too" name on the paper.

You have an opportunity to do something unique and valuable. Don't waste any more time on the SAT when it could be used to really accomplish something.