To introduce myself, I’m a rising senior that goes to an IB school in MA. The school, Sturgis Charter Public School, is known to be the number 1 school in Massachusetts. The courses I take there are higher level Math, Physics, and Latin whereas my standard levels are Art, English, and World History. Yes, I take the full diploma and I have an unweighted GPA of about 3.6 to 3.7 and weighted at approx. 4.5-4.6. I want to major as an engineer for college (not sure which exact field) and I’ve been looking at schools that have really great engineering programs as well as schools that have a really great reputation. I’ve looking at NYU and judging from the campus images on Google and its statistics, I was quite impressed. However, there is one thing that has been bothering me and stressing me out the whole time when my summer vacation started…do I have a smaller chance of getting in because of my SAT scores? My SAT scores are not what you call great, but what call a big laughing joke.
CR: 400
Math: 690
Writing: 540
I know I can improve a lot on math since its my strongest subject, and I know I can improve writing because there are a bunch of grammar rules that I can learn and practice on for the SAT. I’m planning on studying over summer, but I have doubt about raising my CR score because I feel stupid knowing the fact that I can’t get a 500+ on it. Are there any amazing strategies to improving the CR score to 600 or so? I’ve been told by many people that reading books is the best way to improve your score, but some people say that practicing is A LOT more better than just reading books. And also for vocab, I can’t seem to find a way to memorize vocabulary. I tried mnemonics and visual memorization with pictures, but they don’t seem to work. And also, should I just practice on the Blue Book only, or can I do the practice tests on Princeton Review? Finally, if people say that I should take the ACT, I think its safe to say that I’m better off taking the SAT because I have a lot more material/books about it that it just seems more practical. The question is: Is it possible that I can achieve this goal? Every time I take/practice a CR section, I just zone out and at the end, get angry at myself, call myself stupid, and just give up because I never improved. It’s been rough because a lot of people at my school gets such amazing scores, yet, I’m the only one in the top 20 rank that has a low score. I’m such a let down that I just wish some colleges could understand that I’m a terrible test taker.
This comes to the question, should I give NYU a try? One of my former substitute teacher is a professor at Northeastern. He told me that a lot colleges look at a person as a whole. I mean, he’s not wrong, but SAT scores and GPA are also important too! Do you think that NYU could understand that I came from a difficult childhood and that me and my parents moved a lot because of job issues and stuff like that? To be frank, I’ve moved so much that I think I never had the chance to experience the full years of basically all my grades (from K through 5). I’m also the first family member from India to go to college for the first time. However, I live under a rough lifestyle because me and my family manage and partially own a motel business; in other words, I think my family is under a difficult economic situation. I was born at India and moved to the US when I was just 3. Its been difficult because a lot of my friends never experienced this, and I feel like I’m the only one. I believe in hard work, I believe in success, but in a lot of times, I can’t face the fact that this happened to me. Heck, I don’t even know if my parents can qualify for financial aid. I don’t think I can get a Merit Scholarship. SOMEBODY PLEASE HELP ME!!! It’s just how realistic colleges are…they look into the common app, look at GPA and test scores, and they throw mine in the dump. Simple as that.
Judging from a little bit about myself, is it possible that I can improve my CR score. I know a lot of people did, but there are some that don’t and I don’t want to be one of them.