Hello College Confidential, I am a high school junior and I recently received my SAT score from the January exam. I got a 2110 (700CR, 710M, 700W) and was wondering if it would be advisable to retake the test. This was my first attempt and I did little preparation (just downloaded the QOTD app several weeks prior) so I could probably make improvements if I were to take it again. So is a 2110 enough for top tier universities or should I try to raise it? If so what score should I shoot for? Thanks in advance for any responses.
Which colleges are you thinking of applying to?
I plan on applying to UVA (in state), Penn, UChicago, Princeton and Stanford. UVA is obviously the most realistic and I would be thrilled to go, however if I had the choice I would pick one of the other four.
I would retake it maybe just once more? It won’t hurt you.
It wouldn’t hurt at all to retake the SAT. Do a little searching for the score ranges/percentiles for the schools that you are planning to apply to-- your stats seem to fit the average @ UVA, but may be low for the other colleges that you listed.
I think you could score much better if you prepared a bit more-- 2110 is already quite good considering the little practice that you had beforehand-- nice job!
That being said, however, scores do not make the acceptance/rejection. How is your GPA? Extracurriculars? Background? If you have outstanding qualifications and advantages in other areas, you may be able to get into those prestigious with a 2110 no trouble-- everyone’s story is different. But if I were in your situation, I would definitely retake. Good luck.
I have a 3.97 uw GPA (4.3 w). I’ve been on the varsity crew team since freshman year, on the academic team, founder and president of the chess club, as well as NHS and stuff like that. Definitely not any extraordinary extracurriculars so I think I will take the SAT again and take preparation more seriously this time around. Thanks for the advice!
Congrats on a real good score. If you got it without much prep you should def take it again with some prep. With preparation what you can improve on is questions on English grammar rules, Maths in general with practice and Vocab questions. Passage based q’s in CR is the toughest to improve on in short time. As the post #4 above stated, SAT scores alone don’t make it but considering your GPA is pretty good, they will make a difference for top schools.