I have a SAT score of 1520 (770M, 750 EBRW.) Should I submit it or go test-optional? I also have a 5 from math AA HL so I suppose the SAT score might cover for that.
Applying as CS major.
Thanks in advance!
Define top 10?
Look at common data sets - but most likely yes.
And most, whatever you mean by top top 10, will have high submission rates.
I’d submit (I assume you are a senior - if not, you could always take another crack at the SAT although your existing score is excellent). I think a lot of highly selective schools (top 10 or not) prefer a test although they are still officially TO. Unless you are a recruited athlete, FGLI or have some other kind of “hook”, I think a test is preferable.
I agree the evidence at this point strongly suggests that you are usually going to be better off submitting than test optional at least down to their reported 25th, and possibly even a bit lower than that.
To my knowledge, a 1520 is at or above the 25th for every US college, so to me that means you should probably submit everywhere (obviously except for test blind schools).
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1520 (770+750) is a very solid score.
My observation regarding tests scores are as follows:
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with rampant grade inflation, it’s another data point that can demonstrate that you can read and do math. People laugh, but ample news stories during pandemic on how schools had to deal with students admitted who were not ready despite being 4.0 honor students.
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You meet their 25-75% tile and so by admitting you, your score isn’t going to drag down their averages. My S24’s school advisor recommend not sending score only if it’s 1480 or lower because then schools will need to deal with “low” score.
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if you don’t get in, it’s not because 1520 is low. It just means there are just too many applicants. Test score is just one piece of the pie. AO is looking at the whole pie in making their decisions.
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If you read the MIT blogs, once you cross a threshold, their advice is to move on and not dwell on trying to get a higher score. Use that time productively and my sense from reading their blogs is studying to get a higher score once you pass 1500 actually makes you boring.
Good luck.
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My son has the same overall score (780M/740E breakdown), and he submitted it everywhere. He just got in REA to Stanford - unhooked - so it didn’t slow him down.
We all - including his school college counselor - felt his score was worth submitting, even though it did not quite hit the median for Stanford and other T10s (it’s within the 25-75% range for all schools he applied to). Moreover, we felt that not submitting his score would lead AOs to believe his score was quite low vs 1500+.
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Everyone seems to be overlooking the CS major part of your question. A 1520 is great and around the threshold for submission at any school, but it is lower than the averages for many top CS programs. Without knowing the details of the rest of your application, it’s hard to make any sort of recommendation.
For CS especially, you are damned if you do and damned if you don’t. Carnegie Mellon has an optional supplemental question in which you are able to explain why you aren’t submitting. To me, that’s a pretty clear sign that they want to see scores except in extraordinary situations. So even though your scores are on the low end of what they might admit, I would submit there and other other programs that you feel have a similar philosophy. I am not a CS expert, but I believe that in most cases for CS you are better off submitting.
That score should be submitted anywhere and everywhere. Remember, in this era of test optional, they’re going to assume that a missing score means a much, much lower score than your actual score, which meets the bar at any school in the nation.
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