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<p>I guess not and they shouldn’t because a 36 may be really a 35.5 or a 35.75. A true 36.0, however, should be treated as a 2400 imo.</p>
<p>Brown data is interesting, but they didn’t list 800 vs 790 vs 780 …, so we don’t know if an 800 is really better. Also, they didn’t list if a student took the SAT multiple times. I suspect that taking the test multiple times is good for the school (to report a higher score for ranking) but not much for the student.</p>
<p>I can neither imagine how insecure someone would have to be to retake a 2360 nor understand why someone would want to go to a university that (he/she considers) demands absolute perfection.</p>
<p>Anyone who considers re-taking a 2300+ probably knows that his/her ECs aren’t up to par… or is very bored. If I had a Nobel peace prize and helped starving kids in Africa for several years, I’d have the balls to apply to Harvard with a 2000 and make bets that I’d get in. </p>
<p>For me, “I think I should re-take a 2360 to boost my chances of getting into college.” translates to “I know that my ECs suck so I depend on SAT scores to get into top colleges and I’ve rationalized that the difference between a 2360 and 2400 is substantial enough to make an impact.”</p>
<p>^^^ Of course if someone has ECs like that there would be no need to retake a 2360. The insecurity with my son is more his GPA. Isn’t it possible that an imperfect GPA is more easily forgiven for a student with a 2400? But, yes you are right in our case - there is definitely some insecurity here : ) He probably won’t retake but it doesn’t seem so ridiculous to try twice (not 3, or more) for a perfect score.</p>
<p>LOL! This entire thread could only exist on College Confidential. :)</p>
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A sensible person develops a strategy designed to help him get admitted to the colleges where he’d like to go. If those schools value high test scores (as many selective schools in the US do), then it’s just sensible to pursue a strategy to get a high test score. It has nothing to do with insecurity–it’s realism. Now, I don’t think it’s necessarily a good strategy to retake at 2360–but I don’t think it’s unreasonable at all to retake a 2300, particularly if the sections are lopsided (i.e., two 800s and a 700).</p>
<p>One note: a lot of kids who get these high scores are superachievers who are simply annoyed if they don’t get the score that they believe they are capable of–that’s why we often read about kids considering retaking 2380 and 2390–it has nothing to do with insecurity (or even strategy, in those cases).</p>
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<p>qgroup, if your S is capable and willing, I’d suggest he go for a 2400 and a 36.0 if that requires only a few weeks’ preparation.</p>
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<p>Yes, thats correct… </p>
<p>But what the data does indicate is that for each section taken individually, there is at least a 5% increase in admissions percentages when you go from the 750 790 range, up to the 800 range. For some sections it looks to be around 8% or so.</p>
<p>Assume what you say to be true. There is no difference between 780, 790, and 800. Well that 5+% increase has to come from somewhere. So given that hypothetical, it has to mean that there is a huge difference between the 750-770 range and the 780-800 range. I guess thats possible, but I dont see the reason that is more believable. To me its just more plausible that the chances increase fairly uniformly as scores increase at that level. I think the only time a school would consider a lower SAT score to be better (all other things being equal) would be in the case of strategic admissions. </p>
<p>Would you pay $50 if you could magically change your 2350 score to 2400? I bet 99% of examinees would. If just about everybody, deep in their hearts, didnt really believe an additional 50 points were worth at least $1 each, nobody would make a deal like that.</p>
<p>Do I believe there is a huge difference between a 2350 and a 2400? Or even a 2300 and a 2400? No. But I believe there is a difference. </p>
<p>But anyway, Im not a true believer on any of this, so Ill let my argument stand here. I hate the CollegeBoard with a passion and until recently argued the opposite point of view with equal vigor. I just changed my mind looking at the totality of the information. . If somebody shows me new data Ill look at it.</p>
<p>To me, kids that retake 2350 + are stuck up and snobby. Seriously whats the point in spending $48 or $66 (with score report) just to get maybe 40 points higher, which wouldn’t make a difference. Seriously, those kids need to get lives, and I find it ironic they are still considered “Genius.”</p>
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<p>When discussions of these nature appear, the same annual website data and academic studies – particularly the Revealed Preferences Rankings and Espenshade’s regression work – will be repetitively cited because they are, to my knowledge, the only ones that exist that are freely accessible to the public. </p>
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<p>Hunt had the most accurate conception of why very high scores are retaken in #105. High retakes aren’t necessarily reflections of intellectual vanity, insecurity, perceptions of deficiency in other portions of the application, “having no life,” or whatever else. </p>
<p>It is a fact that higher scores at the very top scoring echelons hold greater admissions potency at the most selective universities than scores that are lower. Data are not even remotely compatible with the notion of a pre-established cutoff at an arbitrary performance level followed by selection contingent on other variables. Forty points can (and often do) make a difference. To state that even ten points cannot possibly effect admissions outcome is to misunderstand the basic purpose of score increments. If each score distinction denoted the same level of performance as between that and another increment, ad infinitum, every score along the continuum would be functionally “equal.” In terms of selective admissions observation, this is often correct when tracing admissions effects at “mid-range” test-score values (for a clearer conception, visit page eight of the RPR (page seven if excluding the title page), which was URL-linked in #91). But it does not hold true at the high end of the scale when admissions effects follow a rapidly escalating sequential or, of course, when making basic performance distinctions. Whether one personally believes that certain scaled disparities represent differences in terms of aptitude, achievement, academic readiness, or whatever metrical value the SAT claims to be determining is irrelevant and shouldn’t be involved in fact-claims concerning selective admissions behavior.</p>
<p>I’m thinking that getting a 2400 is a HUGE advantage, along with other extracurriculars, of course. This girl I know who got a 2400 got into Stanford early-admission. She was really involved in JSA and got top grades and was on the tennis team, but that’s it. This guy I know who got 2400 got into Yale with no extracurriculars, but that was a while back.</p>
<p>I got 2320 in December (720CR/800M/800W) and I’m retaking it in March to at least get a great superscore. Thoughts?</p>
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<p>Do whatever makes you sleep at night.</p>
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I think it’s sensible, especially if your experience with practice tests makes you think you can do better on CR. If the 720 was in Writing, though, I would say forget it.</p>
<p>The oft-mentioned Espenshade study uses data which may not be perfectly correlated to current standards. The data is in three sets - one from 1983 and nearby years, one from 1993, one from 1997. The SAT has undergone considerable changes since that time, including the increase of the range. There has also been a considerable increase in test prep, the addition of score choice, and the introduction of superscoring. And, of course, the applicant pool has increased dramatically.
All of these factors suggest to me that attempting to correlate a score of 1500+ in this study to a score of 2300 today is , at best, on shaky ground.</p>
<p>The primary difficulty I see with the Brown data is that it is sectional. It does suggest strongly that a single 800 is associated with a somewhat greater chance of admissions that a single 750-790. But, we cannot determine more with certainty. </p>
<p>The secondary difficulty I see with the Brown data is the super-scoring issue. Brown currently uses the highest section across all dates submitted. It’s not clear, from the data we have how super-scoring would affect admissions. A student who, for example, scored: 750,800,750 on one sitting and 800, 750, 750 on a second sitting and was admitted, would show up twice in the data, but it is impossible to tell if the the second sitting actually affected the student’s admissions result.</p>
<p>A difference between a score of 2300 and 2400 will probably not make or break an applicant’s application. I agree with the OP.</p>
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True, we don’t really know anything with certainty. And I’m sure there are all sorts of tortuous arguments that can be made, in fact I’ve made many of them myself. I haven’t got the inclination to do an exhaustive analysis of every confounding possibility. </p>
<p>But look at the Brown ACT test data. It appears a perfect composite 36 gives an applicant almost a 20% bump over a 33-35 range. Why would this be true for the composite ACT but not the SAT?</p>
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<p>There is no question there. The real question is who were the 2/3 of the 36ers that didn’t make it? </p>
<p>Brown knows that well but we can only speculate. My hypothesis is that those 36ers that got their scores with little effort got in, not those who superscored. The former simply have had more time for ECs with depth and efficiency.</p>
<p>Those who think a higher score will get you in and spend tons of time getting one are misled IMO.</p>
<p>bovertine - I’m not sure how to deal with the Brown data.
There are roughly equal numbers of ACT and SAT takers.
There are about as many ACT scorers of 33 and above as there are SAT scores of 2200 and above.
Considerable more accepted students are SAT takers.
Ratio of ACT perfect scorers applying to ACT 33-35 scorers applying: 3/100
Ratio of SAT perfect scorers (single section) to SAT scorers in the 750-790 section: 25/100 (roughly , averaged over the three sections)
So, like, you , I give up. I’m just not sure what it means.
(There is no info on dual-takers that I can easily find.)</p>
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<p>All the reasons included in this quote simply allude to some changes, but there’s no indication of how those factors defend your enduring mindset that test scores hold no significant importance beyond a certain mark. You’re simply scattershotting some changes to the SAT since this study was completed, with no actual attempt to reason (even erroneously) why these might a) affect the study’s reliability, and b) support your argument. I can’t think of one credible reason why an increase in test preparation, super-scoring, score choice, and, most ridiculously, applicant pool increases would support the notion of philosophical changes in SAT score-use, where a unique cutoff or diminishing sensitivity is placed on the high-end of the scale (the opposite of reality). Increased takings and an increased scale don’t have any effect on the validity of the data. Supporting any effects from increased preparation, super-scoring, and score choice, even in a very tenuous sense, requires providing evidence that schools (or at least the ones under question in the RPR) are obtaining inflated score sets and becoming less able to objectively discriminate among students given the SAT (or ACT) credential is yielding more homogenous high-end results. </p>
<p>Nevertheless, for whatever a verbal survey statement is worth, the percentage of colleges which give “considerable performance” to admission test scores has increased from 46% in 1993 to 60% in 2006 (Source: National Association for College Admission Counseling via Espenshade’s 2009 SAT-themed paper). </p>
<p>You can also find the exact same trend in each year’s website statistics (for all RPR-studied schools) and is concurrently supported through Espenshade’s standardized testing work. It’s not this evolving process where test scores are becoming more immaterial. </p>
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<p>Your charge that super-scoring has a confounding effect on admissions data interpretation is incorrect. Just one data set (consisting of three section scores) belongs to each individual student, not two or more. </p>
<p>Super-scoring entails that the highest section marks are taken for evaluation across relevant sittings. In your above hypothetical, evaluation would consist solely of a combined total of 800/800/750. The two 750’s achieved in the first slots would be discarded from evaluation since they were superseded by higher scores (the 800’s). Therefore, those 750’s would not count toward the data set because they weren’t evaluated per Brown’s score-use policy. If that student were to be accepted, the 800 echelon for the first two sections would receive admit tallies, while the corresponding 750-790 categories would not because the student wasn’t evaluated at that score level in light of higher section totals through the super-score. The 750-790 category would also receive an admit tally for the third section. </p>
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<p>Each institution has a standardized testing page on its College Board profile, showing relative percentages of those who took the SAT and those who took the ACT. Finding overlap percentage is as simple as adding up the percentages of both and subtracting that from 100. </p>
<p>According to what most admissions offices say, the college takes the score most favorable to the student for purposes of evaluation. Yet, both scores (best composite for ACT, best section scores for SAT) are included in the data sets released as public information. </p>
<p>It seems to me that your criticisms stem from how you, personally, would like the SAT to be treated in admissions employing very selective criteria, and not how it genuinely does affect admissions.</p>
<p>I think there would be a difference, but it’s only a few questions wrong and they know that.</p>