I am a high school junior looking to attend WUSTL (dream school), UVA, USC, UNC, UMich, etc. I recently got back my standardized test results: 1500 SAT, 33 ACT.
I was wondering if I should retake my tests to secure my application further?
The main components of my applications will include ballet for over 10 years, member of many honor societies, leader of Key Club, over 150 hours of volunteering, and summer internships/programs. My GPA is about 0.1 lower than the average at these schools.
Please let me know if retaking my tests will significantly increase my chances at being accepted.
It might be worth retaking the SAT (after working on whatever area you’re weakest in and is easiest to improve, probably vocab and/or grammar) to try to get over 750 in R/W, but other than that, a few more points in other areas won’t move the needle, and your existing scores are good, @sona7662 .
I agree with marvin. Your scores are very good and after a certain point they don’t matter too much. Maybe retake if you can get close to a perfect score, but otherwise just focus on your extra curricular. Those ten years of ballet and your other activities would look really good, but make sure you integrate them well into your application (when you do apply). Make sure that those activities show your distinction from other high scorers and how they add on to your dream/goal/future job or something coherent.
Unless you can improve to 1560 or higher… then go ahead… otherwise, a 1520 vs 1500 wont matter… and in fact, uyou may even do worse (statistically speaking) due to the randomness of the test (and then you will have a 1400s to deal with). In my experience, unless the student is extremely motivated (or Ivies ONLY), my reco is not to mess around standardize tests once you have a 15XX. For the schools you mentioned, I doubt 1500 vs 1530 will make a difference. Focus on the essays, how does everything fit, especially in the context of the schools you are applying. Those will move the needle a lot more… BTW. did you take the essay portion of the SAT… of the schools you listed, seems like Umich is the only needs the SAT essay, the others are either optional or not required. Just in case you dont have the SAT essay, and you really want to apply to UMich, then you will need to take the take again. JMHO.
Thanks for the advice everyone… If I do take the SAT again and do worse, will colleges automatically see the score or can I choose to only send my 1500? @marvin100@Me2000@BigflowerSusie
Some colleges ask for all your SATs/ACTs, so, for those, you’ll have to send all of them (but I don’t think they’d be able to see if you omitted sending one). Some colleges also “superscore” (they take the best scores for each section out of ALL the SATs you’ve taken and then calculate a new total SAT score from the best scores), so sending all of the scores would be good in those cases. But you can definitely choose not to send the worse score for colleges that don’t care about seeing ALL your scores or only ask to see one.