<p>With Stanford seeing all your SAT scores, will it look bad if my score was 40 points less the second time I took it than the first time, or will Stanford see this discrepancy as insignificant?</p>
<p>^I would think that admissions departments may have some type of consensus on how to view changes in SAT, perhaps on a continuum from considerable to highly considerable, with a greater delta being highly considerable.</p>
<p>If compared to the ACT what would that be, a change in the composite of a - 1 or -2?</p>
<p>Stanford admissions is widely thought to be very holistic.</p>
<p>I’ve definitely heard that they’re holistic, so would they ignore this change and focus on ECs, essays, passion, traits et cetera?</p>
<p>^I would say that the change is not significant, provided that your midyear report is steady or improved. How do you see the aspects that you mentioned in terms of strength? Excellent EC’s, essays and so on? If those are strong then the delta is nothing dramatic. You likely have something that stands out that is very strong, or compelling. That should get one’s attention more than 40 points off of one of the SAT components. Teacher rec’s also are important and hopefully your strengths noted by your faculty are reinforced by other aspects such as awards and achievements, and lastly test scores. If an AP Bio teacher stoked you up, and then you bombed an SAT Eco Bio – that disconnect may be noticed, and become double whammy. Again, creative study efforts /projects, or effective collaboration and leadership in learning and achievement can trump these examples of shortcomings. Having little to regret about what you have featured on your app. and how well it demonstrates what you will bring to Stanford is vital. If you feel like you have put together a good package of material that represents you and brings out your best, then job well done! Good Luck! Mr. VC</p>
<p>It’s not significant. They are definitely holistic and 40 points shouldn’t affect your admissions. </p>
<p>In my admissions letter they only talked about my ECs and essays. So I think they really value other parts of the app too.</p>
<p>Alternately, would it look bad if your first SAT score was really, REALLY bad? I went from and 1760 (yes, I know) to a 2150 over 5 tests.</p>
<p>Uhhh… Stanford superscores…so it doesn’t matter what you got/how many times</p>
<p>Thanks for the advice…so I take it that spending more time worrying about SATs (both were around 2300) is a waste of time and that I would better spend the time preparing for essays and improving my ECs. </p>
<p>And when they superscore, do they really consider the lower scores or just eschew them IYO?</p>
<p>GlobalDolphin, I believe that a score over 2200 makes you a candidate for Stanford. It now depends upon your essays and EC’s. My D’s score was closer to 2200 than 2300 but she had excellent essays/EC’s and was accepted. Good luck!</p>