<p>What are my chances as an RD applicant? If it makes any difference, Dartmouth has accepted every applicant from my school in the past four or five years. My SAT scores are not great, but I worked hard to make everything else the best it could be. Please chance me.</p>
<p>Everything looks pretty strong, except your Critical Reading score. This is a very important score in the SAT portfolio and it is quite low, unfortunatley, by Dartmouth standards. Most recently reported official data on the CR score for Dartmouth is 25%-75% range of 670-770. The midpoint is around 720. My sense is that you are at the borderline of the entire range.</p>
<p>What I don’t think anyone on CC knows are the kinds of adjustments the adcom makes at Dartmouth, in any given year, in light of other positive and idiosyncratic attributes an applicant presents.</p>
<p>Thanks for the feedback. I’m not keen on taking tests more than two times, especially when I haven’t really seen much of an improvement the second time. It’s what I got, and I think I’ll roll with it. I mean nobody else from my school is applying to Dartmouth, so that may help a bit.</p>
<p>bluebayou, I could take the SAT over again, but I just don’t feel like it. I’ve been taking tests for so long that it’s getting really annoying. It’s not like I haven’t tried different preparation methods. I tried the Xiggi method. I took the online Peterson course. I’ve come to the conclusion that I just can’t do well on the test. Not to mention that I don’t have time for SAT tutoring and class. Those extracurricular activities and hobbies really take up my time, and people depend on me for a lot of things.</p>
<p>How about just concentrating on preparing for the CR section? I agree with Balletgirl and Bluebayou. Everything looks pretty good except that CR . You want to be within the range, in the ballpark… SAT is not the only factor that colleges look at but it has to be within the accepted range for a particular college before they look at your other stuff. </p>
<p>It is up to you to try and improve how your application will look to the colleges on your list. Or you can always change your list to accommodate your score.</p>
<p>CR is all that I concentrated on. I wanted to get at least a 680 in CR because my other two scores were 720 and 700, so I could get an eve 2100 and be in range. I always ended up with 720 to 740 on the practice tests. I was really confident too, but it didn’t happen. I checked everything over as well. CR is just something I can’t do. </p>
<p>Dartmouth looks at your SAT to see if you’re in range first. That’s solely for Dartmouth. Other schools that I’m applying to do not, given their comprehensive admissions statistics on their respective websites.</p>