Should Junior with 2370 Retake SAT?s?

SimpleLife
Wed, 16 Feb 2011 20:44:46 +0000

My son was in a similar position following his only SAT test in October of his junior year. His score was just a little higher than yours. He did not re-take. I fully supported and respected his choice.

My son and I totally agree with “the Dean’s” answer on Sally’s link. There are a few reasons I can think of NOT to re-take it.

In no particular order:

Statistically, you are more likely to come out of the re-take with a LOWER score, not a higher score, even though Math is your best subject. Somewhere on College Board, they cite re-take statistics for given scores – people above something like 2100 (can only remember the gist, not the exact number) statistically score lower on a re-take, not higher. Then how would you feel?

I agree with “the Dean” that there’s a risk that you’ll be viewed as a tad obsessive if you choose to re-take a 2370. EVERY college admissions team would tell you that, in their minds, there is no difference between a 2370 and a 2400. They’re both great scores that say something great about you. It would be pretty cool to say you got a perfect score. It is true that non-admissions people make a lot more out of a perfect 2400 than my son’s extremely-close-to-2400. But re-taking for that reason would be … well, obsessive and prideful maybe? (To my family, anyway.)

I firmly believe that your 2370 will look just as good to admissions as a 2400 … and who’s to say you would get the 2400 the second time around?

There are so many better things to do with your life as a high school junior. High school should be fun. It should be a place where you can safely experiment with all kinds of intellectual and extracurricular pursuits. Those pursuits will not only broaden your horizons and make you a better person. They’ll also make you a better, more interesting college applicant.

So put the SAT study guides away and live a little! :)