Curious if any of you parents had students with a really low math score, but decent CR/W scores. If so, where did your student apply? I am mostly wondering about LACs in the East. Math is 450. CR and W are 650. Student so far is considering St. John’s, Bard and Sarah Lawrence.
I am wondering if test optional schools really mean what they say and will consider students that have some excellent qualities other than strong test scores.
Thanks!
Maybe try the ACT? The math section is structured a little differently.
But the ACT math covers trig, yes? She’s not had it yet. She’s just finishing geometry as a junior. Math is her nemesis, for sure.
Thanks for the link to the thread. This will be a real challenge finding the right schools for reach, match and fit. Student is also a highly social homeschooler who loves to bake, design, ride horses, and run her own businesses.
I’ll start digging around.
Most schools do not use the writing score. So the CR/Math combo is what you are looking at. That is 1100 for this student.
Any chance they could get some tutoring and retake the SAT. Or try the ACT as suggested.
For test optional schools…many are test optional for admissions…but they are not test optional for merit aid. You might want to check that if it is something being considered.
You may find that her scores would be well suited for some of the smaller LACs in the Midwest…look at Denison, Ashland, Otterbein…far less competitive for admissions than the LACs in the northeast.
I would still have your daughter try a practice ACT math section at home. It’s a much more straightforward test, especially the math section. You can have her work through an ACT practice workbook (I’m thinking PR 1296 problems/questions) but just focus on the Math section. My daughter’s SAT math (520) wasn’t that much better than your daughter’s but she was able to score higher on the ACT (25) on her first try. She also didn’t have trig at the time.
IIRC, there are about 7 trig problems out of 60 questions - it’s not a big part of the test. Geometry is a big part - both plane and coordinate geometry. (Put another way, when I took the practice math section, I was able to score 27 without remembering much trig or plane geometry.)
The new SAT also now includes some trig, I believe.
I’m going to suggest the ACT. She did have good math tutoring (and I know the tutor personally; he helped my son, and my son improved), but it didn’t “take”.
She wants Northeast, so no Midwest schools. College is paid for, so cost is not a concern.
I’ve gone through the list of test optional schools and made a list of about 40 schools in the NE, but it’s still a really long list. I’ll be talking with the student (she’s not my daughter, fyi) to get some more ideas of what she wants.
The first three on her list are good, but I know she doesn’t know a lot about other LACs.
I’ve worked with other students will lowish math scores (scores in the 400’s), but they usually had a hook. One student with a 1700 SAT got into USC and UCLA. Another with a 1680 got into SDSU, but both has an arts supplement that was important to the application. (And first student was URM) Not sure this student has any hooks, though her business is pretty cool, but you can’t do a supplement for cooking, I’m afraid.
My D is actually going through this years admission cycle with similarly lopsided test scores. She sent her test scores to the “test optional” schools because “it is who I am.” We live on the West Coast and she moslty targeted West/PNW colleges. However, she did apply to Mount Holyoke (accepted, no merit), Sewanee (accepted, nice merit), and Smith (decision pending).
This is very helpful, @BearHouse. Congratulations to your D!!
There are certainly LACs in the NE that accept kids with scores in the 450 range.
The question is whether she would be satisfied with them.
Probably not the leading ones, unless the rest of the application is outstanding. I’m speculating, but a kid with a great GPA in honors/AP courses with those scores could get in. A homeschooler, unless they have taken a number of dual enrollment classes, or have SATII/AP scores to show, may have a harder time.
If the math tutoring didn’t “take”, it wasn’t a good math tutor.
I’m suggesting another round of tutoring- not for test prep (although that will likely be a nice byproduct) because as a terrible math student my entire life (until I got to grad school and was required to do remedial math before starting the actual academic program and then I discovered I LOVE math), being “bad in math” is really limiting once you get to college and beyond.
Since all of us were in college, the employment world has shifted to numbers. The kinds of majors that kids who were bad in math used to be able to consider (urban planning, psychology, marketing,) have now gone math. I knew a lot of bad math students who ended up in med school- that rarely (if ever) happens today. Even in education- I know young professionals who want a job teaching language arts in a middle school and every single interview asks “what would it take to get you certified in math or chemistry?”
So a smart, hard-working kid shouldn’t let the disparity in her math score define her intellectually or professionally. My remedial math class changed my life- an entire summer before grad school which started with addition/subtraction/multiplication and ended with first semester college calculus. Math all day, five days a week. I got an A which was the only A in math in my entire life, but allowed me to start a quant heavy MBA program on equal footing with my classmates (except for the engineers but that was ok- I wrote well and could read a 500 page case packet without breaking a sweat).
Get her math help!!!
I can relate to your dilemma. My D went through this process 2 years ago with lopsided scores (780 V, 750 W, 550 M). For many schools that D was interested in, she fell in the top 25% for verbal and bottom 25% for math. We pretty much used the combine V/M as the gauge.
D applied mostly to schools in the South and ended up at Sewanee. Although Sewanee is a test optional school, she submitted her scores. She’s an English major and felt her scores helped her more than hurt her. In addition to test optional schools, look at schools with higher average verbal scores than math scores. If your D is willing to consider schools in the Midwest and South, she may have more options.
I second the suggestion of getting another math tutor. We hired a math tutor, but it was “too little too late” in D’s case.
I’d also recommend that your D take the ACT. My D was scared off by the higher level math and wouldn’t take the ACT. I thought that was a mistake. The ACT math seems more straightforward than the SAT. It can’t hurt to try.
Good luck!
We did exactly what @Overtheedge recommends. Also, we were surprised by admission to a few science and math heavy schools, such as UCSD, for English. I think UCSD’s high Math SAT averages could absorb a low Math, high CR/W student. Especially, if the student is interested in English/Writing. The idea is to make the higher CR/W scores to the students advantage rather than focusing on the low M score.
I think test optional schools mean what they say. They’re serious about considering students who don’t submit their scores. This actually helps schools in the rankings, because the kids who do submit their scores tend to be the ones who scored higher than the average student at the school.
And be aware that merit aid tends to be awarded to students who submit high test scores.