Sophomore PSATs - 126
Junior PSATs-139
Junior SATs- 1610
After I took my junior psats , I was really upset by my score so I bought the princeton review book and studied for 2-3 months every night for about 30 mins.
My dream school is Columbia but it seems my scores are low as of now and I want to know what will help me raise them up higher.
I currently take AP spanish,AP history, and AP Lang.
I have a 4.0 GPA & Im ranked #3 in my class. I volunteer at the Ronald McDonald House and I am part of my school’s peer leadership group. I also do softball and cheerleading as well as attend a DELTA Gems program where it empowers young girls to follow their dreams. I also babysit on the side for a little extra cash. My mom makes about 23,000 a year (a little below the poverty line) and I recently became a legal citizen after 10 years of being undocumented.
I currently live in an inner city (Camden,NJ) where the education system is poor and they push students to go to community college. I believe I received one of the highest scores of my grade.
I mentioned all these things so maybe you guys could get a feel of who I am & maybe help me find colleges in NY that will accept a student like me. New review books for the SATs that will help me to get to a 1800 would be helpful too! Thank you!
I forgot to mention I received a 20 in my ACT
and 9/12 on my ACT essay.
On my SATs
530-reading
490-math
590- writing
& a 10 on my essay
All the rest of your stats seem right on for Columbia, but the SAT score is very low. Was there a particular section where you struggled? Critical reading is often difficult to raise, since top scorers have often read a lot their entire lives. Math, on the other hand, is not as hard to improve. I would recommend getting a tutor - because a lot of the math is formula/ method based, there are things you can brush up on to raise your score.
Also, take advantage of your graphing calculator! It’s totally legal to program formulas into your calculator on the SAT/ ACT, so be sure to enter the ones you don’t know. It can be a great time-saver.
Good luck!
I just looked at your update. A 10 on the essay is great! Like I said, reading will probably be hard to improve, but doing some intense grammar/ vocabulary studying could help you on the writing.
Math is actually the one I struggle with. I actually thought I was going to score much higher on the reading and didn’t expect my writing to be that high.
In that case, your reading score might go up naturally the next time you take the test. I would definitely look into getting a math SAT tutor - I hired one before the last time I took the ACT, and my score went up quite a bit. See if any of the math teachers at your school work with kids outside of school for pay.