<p>Hey guys!</p>
<p>My name is Gon</p>
<p>By the way, my study plan for the past SAT involved the blue book and the princeton review, as well as texts from multiple websites. The only things I did not finish in these books were the practice tests. I’ve only made two, I guess (and scored higher than 600 in the referred sections).</p>
<p>First of all, improving your scores is totally dependent on the … practice tests. With so little time, your best bet is to throw away that PR book and only use the Blue Book tests or other official tests that are “available.” Read as many as you can WITH the answer key in front of you and make sure to understand the choice that is correct. If you do that with a dozen tests, your score will get close to an acceptable range for Stanford. </p>
<p>Regarding Stanford, please realize that it is a high reach for everyone, including people who have perfect SAT scores. The good news is that Stanford WILL take a hard look at students who present compelling factors to warrant an admissions. In your case, your grades appear to be superlative in a European environment. As far as I know, everything above a 18/20 is truly remarkable in a system that does not give A+ to US students for bringing an apple a day to teachers. </p>
<p>The other element for you will be to ace the TOEFL. A great score might “excuse” a lower SAT score in English. Adcoms will understand that a student like you might not be able to ace the SAT. </p>
<p>Make sure that your school is sending a detailed appraisal of your scores and stresses how well you did when compared to your peers. </p>
<p>HTH</p>
<p>Thank you xiggi for your suggestions. I am aware that noone can say he is a match for stanford or any other ivy university, especially when he is an international student applying to financial aid.</p>
<p>What I would like to know is if anyone can help me studying for the SAT writing and cr sections (and maybe the TOEFL), as an international student. I know practice makes perfect, but isn’t there any other thing I should focus? Maybe reading some books like Hamlet or at least their summary to have ideas for the essay, or learning a lot of vocabulary through flash cards…</p>
<p>Thank you.</p>
<p>You are a senior, and that means there is no time to waste. While several years of developing reading (and grammar) skills in English would have come in handy, you no longer have the luxury to catch up on Hamlet, or even on the sterile practice of learning vocabulary. </p>
<p>Again, spend all your time and efforts on a PROACTIVE preparation that is 100 PERCENT based on the real tests. </p>
<p>You asked what works, and that it what works very well.</p>
<p>I agree with xiggi. Practice is great, take all of the practice tests you can and go through everything you got wrong. I managed to get better grades on the MC that way. The writing didn’t go so well and I can’t seem to improve, but I’m satisfied with what I got.</p>
<p>Also, have you taken any ACT practice tests? Maybe you’ll score better on those, since there is the science section (which is pretty much interpreting graphs and tables, ect). You should try to take one practice test (there are at least 4 of them free available online), and see how you do, since most colleges don’t seem to have a preference for either one.</p>