Isn’t the Jan test the last chance to take the old SAT? I would go ahead and take it simply because it might make a difference at ultra selective engineering schools like MIT, Hopkins, Caltech and Michigan. My son had a 33 ACT , roughly equivalent of your SAT score, and elected to take it again and added 3 pts… We don’t know if it made a difference, but at least he moved above the 75th percentile at all of the schools. Some of his friends with 33 range ACTs were deferred when he was accepted EA. It might have been other factors, however.
If you don’t plan on applying to engineering schools I don’t think it will make much of a difference. Note that engineering rankings are quite different than those of LACs and national unis. You may also consider a program with guaranteed medical school admission - Brown, Rice and Baylor (among others) have these.
You’re a junior. Don’t sweat it either way. Take the exam again next fall.
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Really not worried about cost constraints at this time- Not the richest family, but I have a supporting cast and I am sure I will find some sort of way to pay/scholarships.
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Mistake. The UCs don’t give much/any awards to OOS students. Your parents would have to pay $50k+ per year. many top schools won’t give you any merit.
You need to be careful otherwise you could end up with no affordable schools.
Well, calm down. You’re only a junior and you have good stats. That means that you can use them to get large merit at the schools that give those awards for YOUR stats.
Your list will change, but no big deal with that. It appears that you want to go to med school, so there are 100s of schools that are fine for that…and many give large merit.
Be glad you found out your budget at this pt in your jr yr vs sr yr. You have plenty of time to create a list that will work. If you found out later, you might have missed scholarship application deadlines. Many of the high merit awards have early fall deadlines, so now is a great time to create your list.
It sounds like cost needs to be a bigger concern than SAT scores at this point.
If your parents are willing to cover much less than their Expected Family Contribution, then the Ivies probably are out. So are other super selective private schools that emphasize need-based aid, not merit aid. So are the “public Ivies” (Michigan, Berkeley, etc.)
You may need to focus on somewhat less selective schools that would offer big merit scholarships. The amount needed depends of the gap between your EFC and what your family is able/willing to cover. Also consider schools with lower sticker prices (in-state public universities or state schools that charge relatively low OOS rates, such as Truman State.)
For any school of interest, estimate your net costs with its online net price calculator. If the net exceeds $25K, then you’ll probably need a merit scholarship equal to the full sticker price minus $25K ($15K-$40K at many private or OOS public schools). Or look for other colleges with sticker prices <= $25K.
Rather than trying to shoot for the most selective schools (top schools with an acceptance rate <25%), where you’re a reach, and if you get in are less likely (or unlikely) to get merit aid, I’d recommend you shoot for a number of “tier 2” schools (by that I mean schools that are still excellent but have acceptance rates in the 30%-50% range, or in the 20-50 range on USNWR rankings more or less), where you are likely to get a good amount of merit aid so that what your parents are paying will cover it. Your chances of getting into med school will be just as good but you’ll have less, or no, debt. The more “match” schools you apply to which are known to offer merit aid, the more chances you have that you’ll get something substantial, maybe even a full scholarship so your parents can put that $100K towards med school instead. (My D, with stats similar to yours turned down a ~20 ranked school for a ~40 ranked school that offered twice as much aid.)
In other words, I’d just apply to 1-2 reaches that you really want to go to, and the rest matches/safeties.
Also, if you want to do engineering, bear in mind that the acceptance rates at some colleges are substantially lower than the general acceptance rates (the ones usually published) - for example, it’s much more difficult to get into engineering at UCSB than other majors; and this is especially true of the UCs because so many foreigners apply to there to study engineering, same for Michigan and UIUC.
