Hello,
I took the June 6th SAT (the one they messed up) as a 15 year old sophomore, and scored 2310. (800 math, 800 writing, only 710 reading), and was wondering whether it would be worth it to take it again. I know many colleges use lenient ScoreChoice and Superscore policies that make it incredibly easy for applicants to pad their SAT scores with multiple attempts. I did mine on my first try, a single attempt, and with hardly any studying at all and at a much earlier point of high school than most people would consider taking it. Therefore, I was wondering the following:
Since colleges claim to take a holistic approach to their application process, does this apply to the SAT as well?
In other words, would it impress them if I explain my situation, taking it so early and still scoring as high as I did on my first time, as opposed to those who took multiple efforts throughout junior and senior year and took advantage of superscore?
Or, theoretically, would it have a much greater effect if I studied and took it again next year, lets say during the spring, and scored a 2400? Would it even be worth the time and stress to even attempt it again?
I appreciate everyone’s advice.
Thanks.
Congratulations on your scores! You have a strong chance with many colleges, but which colleges are you applying to? Some colleges would accept you for large merit scholarships on the basis of your SAT scores. You might want to check the qualifications of the schools you are planning on applying to, and see if they accept superscores. If so, you might want to consider studying just CR to improve that score as much as you can. Also touch up on writing and math a couple days before the tests to ensure good results for the schools that want to see all your scores. But if you don’t want to put yourself through that stress, I don’t think that it is absolutely necessary to retake the SAT. Good luck!
@Inthepursuit Thank you very much for your response. I’m pretty sure I could improve my CR score if I took the test again, especially considering the harsh curve of the messed up June 6th test. After discussing with other test takers, I’m very confident, if not certain, that I had gotten every question correct on the two CR sections that were thrown out. However, I got 4 wrong in the earlier sections, which under this curve, made my score only a 710. If they had not made the mistake, I believe my score would have been closer to a 780, or 2380 overall. The question is, if I retake it, whether I could maintain the 800s in Math and Writing. I feel I could in Math, but not so sure about Writing since I only got a 10 on the essay this time around.
I am still looking for an answer to my question of whether or not colleges view these scores holistically. If an admissions officer sees one kid who took the test in a single attempt as a 15 year old and scored a 2310, and another kid who took the test multiple times over junior and senior years and used superscore to get a 2400, which would impress them more?
hey guys.
i seem to be having some trouble with critical reading. I took my first SAT test on March on got a 520 on this section (pretty low). then i took the test again in june and got a 550. i am looking for a score in the 700 range. i am an all A student and take all advanced classes. does anyone have any prep books and a recommended reading list of books that can be helpful to really boost my score.
Congrats mate
You are a genius! 
And personally I don’t think there is a reason to re take the test as you already have a good SAT score. I guess you should focus more on your GPA and other admission factors
@notwbog123 There isn’t really a guaranteed way to improve your score. I did suggest trying to understand how to actively read the passages to try and predict the answers to questions, and also understand how they try to trick you, which is especially important on CR. There are some good guides out there like the one by prepscholar. Other than that, just do a lot of practice tests and read all the time. For the vocab , just try to learn a few words a day and read some more complex types of literature/articles (I’ve read many scientific research papers because I do a lot of research myself, both independently and under a university professor)
@notwbog123 Oh and another great way to learn vocab is to just print out one of the “Top (250, 500, 1000 whatever) list of SAT words” that are out there, with the words, definitions, context, etc. and try to memorize all of them. Also, playing SAT Vocab on Quizup was one of my favorite study methods.
I personally thing that CR is a useless topic. Many of the answers are far too subjective, ambiguous, and simply unfair. No where in any textbook does it concretely say that if an author says that the sky is blue, his actual intent is to express some profound psychological conundrum. Unless you’re going to be a literature major or something, you’re only purpose for reading something should be to get the important information out of it, not try to guess every little thing that was going through the authors mind as he wrote it.
If you’re certain you can improve, there’s certainly no harm in taking it again if it wouldn’t take too much of your time and resources to improve. Obviously your current scores are exceptional, but getting in the 750+ range would make you even more impressive if it wouldn’t be too much trouble for you to retake it.