Ignore Lower SAT Score

[nhsharvard]

<p>Would colleges ignore a low SAT score, such as a 1640, and look at a higher ACT score, such as a 27+?</p>

[RealM]

<p>they see what you send.</p>

[nhsharvard]

<p>Would they put more weight on a higher ACT score than a lower SAT score?</p>

<p>I know that some people do better on the ACT, while others do better on the SAT. </p>

<p>Would colleges take this fact into account?</p>

<p>I took a practice ACT and I got a higher score than my SAT score.</p>

[tokenadult]

<p>I see you have “harvard” as a character string in your screen name, so perhaps you would be interested to see what is said in this year’s Harvard viewbook: </p>

<p><a href=“http://www.admissions.college.harvard.edu/utilities/electronic_resources/viewbook/Rollo0708_GuideApplying.pdf[/url]”>http://www.admissions.college.harvard.edu/utilities/electronic_resources/viewbook/Rollo0708_GuideApplying.pdf&lt;/a&gt; </p>

<p>

@Harvard admission office

If you submit more than one set of scores for any of the required tests, the Admissions Committee considers only your best scores—even if your strongest SAT Subject Tests or portions of the SAT Reasoning Test were taken on different dates.

</p>

<p>If your score on the ACT is significantly higher than your SAT score, that is the score the admission office considers. </p>

<p>If you’d like to be really, really sure about this, this is a good time of the year to send email questions to college admission offices. And before your application deadlines, you can visit many regional college information sessions, such as the Exploring College Options sessions </p>

<p><a href=“http://exploringcollegeoptions.org/[/url]”>http://exploringcollegeoptions.org/&lt;/a&gt; </p>

<p>which will be all over the country in the fall of 2007, including California, giving you a chance to ask admission officers from Duke, Georgetown, Harvard, Penn, and Stanford this question, or questions of related interest. </p>

<p>To directly answer your question, yes, colleges take into account that some test-takers score higher on the ACT, and some score higher on the SAT, and each applicant is given the benefit of his or her best scores by the highly selective colleges that address this question.</p>

[nhsharvard]

<p>Actually, the sessions already came in May for Harvard.
Yale had their session in June. I didn’t go to any of the sessions, so I’m visiting Stanford in August. I believe that it’s about 6-7 hours away from me.</p>

<p>I’m going to visit Stanford in the Fall because I missed the sessions.
For Harvard and other schools that are much farther from me, I’ll tour the school online, if they have such as thing as that.</p>

<p>I’m researching their admissions policies and the majors that tend to be better taught at each college.</p>

[tokenadult]

<p>There will be new information sessions in the fall. They will be announced on the Exploring College Options Web site </p>

<p><a href=“http://exploringcollegeoptions.org/[/url]”>http://exploringcollegeoptions.org/&lt;/a&gt; </p>

<p>and on the individual Web sites of colleges in the next two months or so, although it does appear that you have to decide what to do about tests before you have opportunity to attend the information sessions. </p>

<p>I have since seen some of your other threads. Most people replying to you think test scores are a crucial issue for you increasing your chances of admission at some of the colleges you desire to apply to, and I have no reason to disagree with that. Are you devoting a lot of time this summer to reading? Colleges like the ones you mention expect a lot of reading out of their students, and I get the impression from your list of extracurricular activities that you devote more time to music practice than many young people I know, but perhaps less time to reading. Cram in as much reading as you can about whatever you like to read about or NEED to read about (for example, the college admission process and how to find suitable colleges to apply to) and find genuine previous tests </p>

<p><a href=“http://www.amazon.com/Real-Guide-guide-include-tests/dp/0768919754/[/url]”>http://www.amazon.com/Real-Guide-guide-include-tests/dp/0768919754/&lt;/a&gt; </p>

<p>to practice with before you next take a standardized test. Read, read, read, and READ. </p>

<p>Good luck in your applications.</p>

[siserune]

<p><a href=“tokenadult:”>quote</a>
To directly answer your question, yes, colleges take into account that some test-takers score higher on the ACT, and some score higher on the SAT, and each applicant is given the benefit of his or her best scores by the highly selective colleges that address this question.

[/quote]
</p>

<p>Maybe, maybe not. There is not much published evidence of how combined SAT and ACT scores are handled, or indication that test scores are always and universally viewed in the most generous light. ACT in particular is not necessarily viewed as an all-purpose equivalent of SAT, being more manipulable (report highest scores only) and less discriminating as a measure.</p>

<p>From Richard Shaw, Yale admissions director:</p>

<p>

Like many schools, Yale requires students who take the SAT to also submit SAT subject tests, such as biology or U.S. history, known as SAT 2s. That’s not necessarily required of ACT takers. If an applicant “is in a primarily SAT state and only submits the ACT, it would make me pause,” Yale’s Shaw says.

</p>

<p><a href=“http://www.usatoday.com/news/education/2004-08-16-sat-act_x.htm[/url]”>http://www.usatoday.com/news/education/2004-08-16-sat-act_x.htm&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;

<p>Nor does Harvard’s statement quoted above appear to discuss the combined ACT + SAT situation; it seems more that they consider the highest SAT scores and the highest ACT sitting, but may or may not consolidate them into a single number.</p>

[tokenadult]

<p>Richard Shaw is not admissions director at Yale anymore. He is admissions director at Stanford. I like to stick with current information.</p>

[siserune]

<p>Do you have any substantive objection to the above criticisms, other than noting Richard Shaw’s new affiliation? Can we ignore your many questioned conclusions about SAT that were based on statements from people who did not work in any admissions office at all as of Sept 1, 2005, which is the date Shaw started at Stanford?</p>

<p>By the way, the OP has listed Stanford as one of his top 3 choices, and is applying from California, a primarily-SAT state. Would you consider the above quotation, from Stanford’s current admisions director, relevant to his questions?</p>

[siserune]

<p>Another dose of reality from (current) Dean Richard Shaw reporting to the Stanford faculty senate on the work of the admissions office. This should further dispel any illusion that tests are blindly “superscored” with no further analysis:</p>

<p>

“Obviously, we look at the SATs, including the SAT II, which is not required. A vast majority of the students that apply send us subject exams, and we look at those as well. We analyze the testing patterns, whether these plateau or are up and down. We also can use the American College Test (ACT) in lieu of the SAT, as a primary test.”

</p>

<p>This from the minutes of the April 20, 2006 meeting. </p>

<p><a href=“http://facultysenate.stanford.edu/2005_2006/minutes/04_20_06_SenD5831.pdf[/url]”>http://facultysenate.stanford.edu/2005_2006/minutes/04_20_06_SenD5831.pdf&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;

[tokenadult]

<p>I think the OP does have a tough problem raising his score, and I would advise him to look for a good safety college besides Stanford and Harvard. “We also can use the American College Test (ACT) in lieu of the SAT, as a primary test,” which I had read much earlier, is Richard Shaw’s statement which shows the ACT is not disfavored by Stanford in its most current practice. I have a lot of good contacts with current or very recent experience in Stanford’s admission office, and the OP’s main issue is simply to have ANY score that is up to the level of Stanford’s applicant pool, whatever test it is on. </p>

<p>Best wishes to the OP.</p>

[siserune]

<p>

“We also can use the American College Test (ACT) in lieu of the SAT, as a primary test,” which I had read much earlier, is Richard Shaw’s statement which shows the ACT is not disfavored by Stanford in its most current practice.

</p>

<p>How does it show that in any way, shape, or form? How is his statement in any way different from “we accept the ACT”? Yale also accepted the ACT when he was Dean there, without official disfavor, just as Stanford did and does; but Shaw nevertheless went on the record about ACT submissions “giving pause” when from SAT-dominant regions. Do you believe there were major changes in the perception of ACT, either in general or by Richard Shaw, during the 20 months between Shaw’s August 2004 statement to USA Today, and his April 2006 presentation to the faculty at Stanford?</p>

[tokenadult]

<p>I think there have been national changes in the willingness of all colleges to accept either test. You could write to Dean Shaw to ask if you care that much about this issue.</p>

[siserune]

<p>

You could write to Dean Shaw to ask if you care that much about this issue.

</p>

<p>uh, excuse me, but you are the one putting words in his mouth, and Stanford’s.
Suggesting that others perform research on your (so far, apparently unjustified) speculations is rather odd, to say the least. </p>

<p>The national rise in ACT happens to be fueled by the same suspicion-inspiring features that Shaw referred to in 2004. That would increase the number of ACTs submitted in elite college admissions, but why should it reduce the suspicions of the kind that he articulated? If you know of some reason to discount his 2004 comments in 2007, what is it?</p>