I am retaking the SAT next month so my scores will be slightly higher, but as of now I want to gauge my chances. I have a 94 overall gpa, I’m in Arista, English Honor Society, and Social Studies Honor Society, as well as the National Junior Honor Society. I go to one of the top science high schools in NYC (second to only Brooklyn Tech.) I got an 1810 on my SAT the first time around: (reading= 640, writing= 710, math=460.) I’m terrible at math but I’ve been going to tutoring sessions to boost my grade. My sister currently attends BU and has a 3.9 gpa (I am mentioning this in case “legacy” indeed plays a role in me being admitted.) I’ve taken 3 ap courses and an honors course. Do I have a good chance?
Do you have a disability in math? The discrepancy between the math and other scores suggests an issue that may be more than simply not being good at math. Given you are probably at either Bronx or Styvie, it is amazing that you have a 94 average. Would you be willing to share how have your math grades been and what you have taken. Could you have made a bubble error in your math SAT? After all, you had to score amazingly high on SHSAT to get into that school to begin with. Have you tried the ACT? That is a more straight forward test rather than a trick question test. Given relatively good grades, I bet you’d do well on it-even on the math section. The likelihood of getting into Binghamton may be somewhat dependent on how you do in a retake.
I’m in Leon M. Goldstein High School for the Sciences; it’s not a specialized NYC high school so I wasn’t required to take the SHSAT, but it’s still nationally ranked. I’ve never considered having dyscalculia because no parents/teachers ever approached me about the possibility, given that my determination always caused me to study so hard for math that I was always pulling average and fairly decent scores in the classes through memorization. I had about a 90 in integrated algebra in 8th grade. Freshman year I was greatly effected by Hurricane Sandy, so my grades didn’t reflect my effort or intellect much- I had a 70 in geometry. I maintained a 93 in alg2/trig, but I took it over the course of 3 terms. Right now I have a score in the high 90’s in statistics. I don’t believe I have time to study for and take the ACT at this point because I wish to apply early action to Binghamton to improve my chances, and the deadline is November 15th. I also just transferred into 2 AP classes (Government and Econ) so my workload is pretty heavy. Is there anyway that my writing and CR scores can somewhat overshadow my math score if they’re close to 800 the second time around? Will the admissions board take into account my strengths and weaknesses? I obviously do not wish to major in anything that is remotely related to math- in fact, I’m thinking about majoring in journalism because I want to be a writer.
As you know, nobody can provide actual accurate “chances”. Your chances are higher if you have positives to offset the very low math score. You have a 94 average which can be excellent or not. It depends upon the classes you took and how the grades were distributed across the classes. If you have top grades in all the humanities, and if you took very rigorous courses in the humanities, that 94 will mean more than if you got As in low level classes and lower grades in the more intense or rigorous classes. You won’t really know until you apply and hear from the school. Seems like they may end up wanting to see your 1st semester grades or mid 2nd semester grades before making a decision.