<p>Hi
I am a Junior in high school thinking about college.
I want to get into one of the selective universities. Because I am an Asian, college is really big deal for me. Bigger for me than it is big for most of the people. I know that the colleges people get into depends a lot on SAT scores. So I took the SATS. My total score was 1930. Math:690, CR:560, and WR:680.
After i got my scores, I did some research. I can get into some of the competitive colleges if i just look at my 1930, but my CR score is horrible. And a lot of selective colleges have CR scores above 560.
Just by looking at my 1930, I chose UC Berkeley and UCLA as first and second choices. But those schools’ 50% of freshman applicant CR scores ranged from 570~720. My CR score is 10 points short to minimum score of mid 50 percents.
My GPA is pretty good. although I messed up my freshman and sophmore years, I made up all the classes and those two years of GPAs are close to 4.0 and my current classes are all honors except for college carreer. So my GPA is quite close to 5.0.
What I am counting on is my writing score. But according to my research, a lot of schools don’t take writing section as granted because it’s not comparable to the old SATS like CR is comparable to old verbal section.
How much would my writing score of 680 count to get me into UCLA or UC Berkeley? Would I have any chance of getting into those schools with my current score? Or should I retake the SATS? And also, I am an international student from Korea and transferred to an American high school in my junior year. Which means I didn’t have all English enviroment educations like everyone else did. Would that give me any benefits since I am handicaped by language barrier?
I would appreciate it if people here who have experiences in college admission answer my questions. Thanks</p>
<p>A 1930 is an extremely good score, but if I were you, I’d study and try to get that score up a bit (with a focus on CR). Your GPA/academic performance is extremely good, so I don’t doubt that you could up your score significantly with a bit of studying and practicing.</p>
<p>To put it short, that score isn’t going to get you into anywhere competitive. Schools really don’t care about the writing score, so don’t think that that is going to be some stellar thing to them. Your math score is good, but I am afraid ur CR score is a little too average.
And Asians are generally getting excluded now. Asian is no longer considered a minority, so a white person has a better chance than you. This all happened because a million other asians got the same idea as you of “I am a minority, I can get in anywhere”, and colleges now have gotten flooded by them. Supply and demand, lotta asian supply, low demand.</p>
<p>White male is becoming what every college wants because so very few of them apply to the more elite colleges.</p>
<p>If that statement about white males were actually correct, i’d be in bliss.</p>
<p>Hey NervesOfJelly, I really appreciate you for being honest and telling me about the writing scores, but can you read? Well… What i meant to say was “Do” you read at all? Please don’t post spams without reading the whole thing of original posts. Have I said anything about being a minority? Did I say anything about “I am a minority, I can get in anywhere”? Closest thing to that was questions on non-american citizen international students with VISA and the language barrier in the last part</p>
<p>Oh the irony. Can you read, whsskdhkf, is the real question. One question I must pose: if you’ve taken all honours courses essentially, how did you manage to get 5.0s in all of the language related ones?</p>
<p>Answer to that question is Logos, I cheated. I grew up in bilingual enviroment due to my parents’ obsession in English education. My English score in Korean National Scholastic Achievement Examination for the College Entrance was higher than 99.8 percent of the students. However, I am noted as a newcomer in the school district because i never mentioned any of it.
And besides, my school is a new school. So this suppposedly “honor’s seminar” is just my school’s method to raise students’ GPA to earn reputation as a College Prep School with high scores. Which means you can get a 5.0 as long as you turn in all your stuff (typed or written in pencil) in the last minute</p>
<p>Oh… and what is this “Oh the irony. Can you read, whsskdhkf, is the real question.” supposed to mean?</p>
<p>I don’t mean to be rude or anything, but from what I’ve heard and from what I’ve seen from the Seniors at my school, a 1930 isn’t going to get you anywhere competitive. Maybe UCB if you really are that good in school. You may have the good grades in school, but universities might just look to that as inflation if your SATs don’t match up to them. </p>
<p>Also, SATs aren’t everything. Get some extra-curriculars.</p>
<p>The Supreme Court Case Regents of the University of California v. Bakke established that Affirmative Action can only be used as the deciding factor if 2 applicants of different races are applying and have basically the same stats. Only in that case would being the minority be adventageous, so race isn’t really that big of a deal. In any case, UC’s decided (in the 90’s, I think) that they wouldn’t use race as a factor at all, so basically since you said you were looking at Cal and UCLA, you and all the other applicants are on a level playing field. </p>
<p>And concerning the original topic, I have a feeling that they look at your school scores more than they do the SAT. I say this because I know a number of people who didn’t do so hot on their SAT’s, like they got a score in the 1700’s or 1800’s, but their grades were really strong and they still got into UCLA. And if it makes you feel any better about your CR score, somebody’s got to bring the average down :P</p>
<p>To quote you, “I am an international student from Korea and transferred to an American high school in my junior year. Which means I didn’t have all English enviroment educations like everyone else did. Would that give me any benefits since I am handicaped by language barrier?”</p>
<p>Ummmm, last I checked, everything except White is a minority in America, and you say you are from Korea.</p>
<p>And by the way you phrase that, it sounds like you are going to try to milk it for all it’s worth.</p>
<p>“handicaped by laguage barrier” puh-lease. That is the biggest load of crap ever. Like english isn’t taught to all Koreans in every elementary school. I learned spanish, should I list that as a “Lanuage Barrier”</p>
<p>Guaranteed way to get into non-ivy schools:</p>
<p>1)SAT/ACT Scores
2)GPA
3)Volunteer Hours</p>
<p>Like any school has time to read 30000 essays or go through interview notes.</p>
<p>With Ivies, there is no sure-fire way to get in. You could get a 2400 SAT and 36 ACT and still not get in. They kinda do whatever the hell they want.</p>
<p>ok ok the only thing i see here is people asking questions, then the later posts just arguing. </p>
<p>to answer yur question whss, a 1930 is a “SOLID” score. 1800 is considered good. and 2000 and over means the schools will look at you more than a score of 1900 and lower. the first time i took sat i got 1900, then 1920, then 2040. because i am korean, i sucked at cr the first time haha. i got math-710, writing-650, and cr-540. but the last one i took i got math-680, cr-690, and writing 670. so i suggest that you work on cr since it is the easiest subject to raise, i don’t think i did anything to change the cr score, i just understood the passages. </p>
<p>and to really answer yur question of whether a 1930 will get you into the schools you want, its a no. i applied to ucla, berkeley, sd, irvine, usc, johns hopkins, carnegie mellon, cornell. and i got accepted to only sd and irvine. i had 4.3 weighted, and tons extra, and my UC essay was really good. so you need high sat scores. my friends who got into berkely and ucla-SAT was 2220 and 2380.</p>
<p>stevie, I think you had bad luck. A whole bunch of kids from my school got into UCB with scores around 1900</p>
<p>are u serious</p>
<p>ur a junior
take the SAT may and june
and take the ACT june</p>
<p>DUHHHH
also
i dont know if making up ur grades will help for too many colleges
but definately for UC’s it will
so
if u raise ur SAT to a 2100+
or score 31+ ACt
u should have a great shot at Cal and UCLA</p>
<p>No way Berkely or UCLA. Look at the stats of the kids who DIDNT get in. Amaze me. Go for Irvine or UCSD.</p>
<p>nervesofjelly, where the heck did you hear that white males are more in demand b/c they don’t apply to elite schools. That is completely incorrect. If anything, Id say african-americans and latinos are more in demand</p>