Am I screwed by my SAT Scores?
Dear Babs,
I’m getting my SAT scores back this Thursday, and I’m pretty sure I didn’t do as well as I had hoped. I heard that if you want to get into a top-school, you need to get above a 2100. Is this true? Should I forget about going to a good college?
-Bad Tester
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Dear B.T.,
I wouldn’t shelve your college plans just out. Lately, there has been a lot of talk about colleges de-empahasizing the importance of sat scores in their admissions decisions. A growing number of top liberal-arts schools are joining the “SAT Optional” movement, including Bard College, Bennington College, Bates College, Drew University, and Connecticut College (to name a few). Sarah Lawrence, a private liberal arts college in New York, does not even consider SAT or ACT scores in their admissions decision. They feel that the SATs do not provide a good measure of future success at their college. In addition to a long list of some of the nations best liberal arts colleges, the president of the University of California spoke against the use of these standardized tests.
Many more colleges are simply trying to downgrade the weight of the SAT’s in admissions decisions. If an otherwise excellent applicant has poor SAT scores, it won’t automatically rule him/her out. Other schools do still emphasize SAT scores-often large universities need objective criteria to quickly filter through massive piles of applicants. Also, some schools pay attention to the SAT’s because it is a criteria that affects their rankings. Basically, low-SAT scores may or may not hurt you. If your grades are good, but you find that your SAT scores leave something to be desired, take heart. Look into some “SAT Optional” colleges to see if one might be a good fit for you, and try and make your application stand out in other areas. After all, you are more than just a test score.
Good Luck!
-Babs
This entry was posted on Tuesday, June 23rd, 2009 at 2:10 pm and is filed under Admissions, Dear Babs, Sat-and-ACT. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.
