<p>I plan on applying to very competitive colleges. I am very happy with my score (I took it in January) but I was wondering if it is good enough to make me competitive applicant. Some of my friends with higher scores than me are retaking it and that makes me a little curious as to if my score is really good enough.</p>
<p>My breakdown of my first test was 790 CR, 800 M, 750 W. I hear that writing is the easiest section to improve your score on so I think that if I manage to pull off a repeat performance for my CR and M grades I should be able to have a 2390 in one-sitting (yay overoptimism!) or at least a 2390 superscored.</p>
<p>I guess my second question is if colleges look more favorably on one-sitting test scores than a superscored higher score. Like if I got a 800 on the writing next time but a 750 M and anoterh 750 CR or something but would still have a 2390 superscored.</p>
<p>No snarky comments please :-/ I know this sounds a little high-strung but I am just curious.</p>
<p>A college is probably going to raise an eyebrow if you retake a score that high. There’s no point. I don’t mean that snarkily, it’s just true.
Once you have 750+ in each section, any raises are artificial variation, not significant improvement. Retaking to go over that is basically the standardized test version of “grade grubbing.”
Your score is fine to put you in the running for any university.</p>
<p>No. You will impress the adcoms by showing you are not neurotic. I have read quotes from many top admissions directors that say they consider 100 points as an irrelevant difference.</p>
<p>Yes. There is a study that shows exponential acceptance rates for 98%'tile + scorers as the SAT scores migrate from 2300 to 2400.</p>
<p>Basically, from 2300 —> 2400, there is an exponential increase in accept rate. While 2300’s may have an estimated what 20?25%? shot at Harvard, everyone knows those with a 2400 has a 50% ish shot as posted on the Harvard website, given that other subjectives are held constant.</p>
<p>Jason’s comment makes no sense, and the link doesn’t work. You are already at the highest percentile, so not sure what the 98% is about. Harvard and the others are not so stupid as to think there is a real difference between a student with a 2380 SAT and one with 2340. That is just paranoia to think they do. They will totally focus on your other factors after seeing your SAT’s. Keep up your grades and go save the world (so to speak) and you will have given yourself as good a chance as you are capable of having.</p>
<p>If this was your first time, yes, I’d recommend retaking it.</p>
<p>Taking a test 2 times is not seen as neurotic, as much as others would have you believe. Additionally, studies (such as the one Jason posted) have shown that there are actually very substantive differences in admit rates between 2340 and 2390/2400. Even top colleges want to have score range boosts and are definitely impressed by scores over 2350.</p>
<p>Absolutely not, particularly if it’s your first time</p>
<p>(please note: I wanted to give this advice so badly that I created this account!)</p>
<p>At the point where you have achieved a 2340, no college is going to doubt your academic abilities. Really, once you hit 700 in each category, personal experience has told me that higher scores stop correlating with getting into top schools.
And while scores at the top of the 2300 range do correlate with higher admissions rates, part of that is a conflation of correlation vs. causation, esp. because these studies necessarily can’t quantify subjective elements of the application like your essays and letters.</p>
<p>I am of the opinion that there is substantial benefit in demonstrating your normalcy and self-confidence by declining to retake it. I took the SAT once, January of my junior year, and did respectably well (2230). Everyone told me to retake it; I didn’t. I am now sitting pretty after getting into Stanford early while everyone else is caught up in the pre-April 1st excitement. Granted, my other standardized test were quite fabulous, but I do believe that the fact that I only took the test once helped reinforce some of the qualities I indicated on the short-answer portions of my applications</p>
<p>Best of luck though! If you scored 2340, you’re in a pretty good location right now</p>
<p>I say go for it if you feel like you didn’t perform your best this time around. If you are really satisfied with a 2340, then I wouldn’t retake. Taking it a second time only in hopes that you might get lucky and improve is pretty useless, only retake that score if you are disappointed with it. And yes, as JasoninNY has pointed on, studies have shown that acceptance rates are exponentially higher at 2350+ contrary to popular belief. 2400 scorers have over 50% acceptance rates at HYP which is quite impressive. As a personal anecdote, I just retook my 2370 in January today, so its really up to you.</p>
Right, your anecdotal and vague “peronal experience” <em>definitely</em> trumps scientific studies.</p>
<p>
Did you take the ACT? Clearly, if you did, your entire argument is largely irrelevant. The OP is apparently relying on SAT score, so he obviously wants to maximize it.</p>
<p>I would also say no. You can spend the time more wisely. I believe your are splitting hairs to retake. My daughter’s private school GC did’t reccomend it either and he is an officer in NACAC, so she sat once, was happy and worked on other things to help her make her best application.</p>
<p>Eh, you know what, if you really want to retake it, go ahead and do so. (I had already read Mifune’s thread, so I’m not changing my mind on account of the last few posts. I still feel like the OP doesn’t need to take it.) I considered retaking a 2300 (800, 700, 800), but as I could only go up on one section (Math), and my previous score on that section was 690, I thought it was pretty obvious that my score was not going to get better unless I devoted my life to the SAT. Writing is really easy to move up, and if you’ve gotten a 790 in something once, you can get an 800 the second time around. Go for the 2400.</p>
<p>I actually might have retaken, but I ran out of time. I took the SAT I in May and took the SAT II on every SAT Saturday until EA stuff was due. I guess I could have retaken the SAT just for my RD schools though.</p>
<p>jasonInNy, one partial error in your analysis is that SAT generally correlates with the students’ other application details. 2400’s don’t have just their SAT over 2300’s… they’re, on average, better at other aspects too. The real acceptance curve you’re describing is guaranteed to be less than exponential, though I can’t tell you what.</p>
<p>ENGINEthatWILL, you have a nice distribution that makes it not particularly worthwhile to retake. Had you had 1540/2340, I might’ve told you otherwise.</p>
<p>I’m inclined to side with those who say don’t, and I would say this is especially so if it was your only attempt. Your scores look great so there’s a significant chance you can mess up the second time around.</p>
<p>Depending on the state you are in, you may need 1600 to be Candidate for US Presidential Scholar if that is something you might be interested in. Google it if you don’t know what that is. They only use CR+M. Less populous states will have candidates with <1600, but the more populous ones will need 1600.</p>
<p>Go for it if you have time! I’m retaking a 2340… but that was with 800 CR, 740 M, and 800 W. If you do better next time, you can use score choice and nobody will ever know your first score.</p>
<p>That’s precisely my point. Such studies aren’t particularly interesting because they can’t separate subjective variables out when examining acceptance rates for students. Of course 2400 kids are more likely to be admitted than 2300 kids or 2200 kids; they’re probably the ones (or the ones with the parents) who are more pushed to do well grade-wise and develop an extracurricular life as well.
And for the top schools, since so many kids have stellar numbers, the subjective elements inevitably prevail. Which is a shame for these studies</p>
<p>And for @kameron: I was referencing my subject tests and AP scores</p>
<p>I still wouldn’t recommend retaking it since it will be very difficult to go up (at your level of performance and with the system by which the SAT is graded, you could very easily go down based on silly mistakes or fatigue).
Either way, be happy!</p>
<p>Actually, there seems to be a bigger flaw in Jason’s (and Mifune’s) reading of the paper as it relates to this person’s question. 2340 is 99+ percentile, and more to the point 1590 is 99.8 percentile. The paper relates admissions by percentiles, not actual scores. In other words they don’t cut it as finely as breaking it down to the first decimal place, which is what would be required to differentiate between 2340 and 2380, for example. One can only conclude from their paper that there is a difference once one crosses from one percentile range to another. Harvard admissions has stated a number of times that once a student is 2300+, they then look to the other academic qualifications of the applicant as well as how they might contribute to the diversity of the incoming class. Believe them, don’t believe them; one’s biases will determine that. But there is no hard evidence to the contrary in that paper. As has been already stated, a person that gets 2380 or 2400 may well have other qualities that puts them over a 2300 candidate, and the study cannot account for that effect despite their statistical analysis.</p>
<p>There is really no big deal if the OP takes the test again, but I personally think they are wasting their time and money.</p>