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Mrs. Aardvark
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| Joined: | Thu Jan 31st, 2008 |
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Posted: Thu Feb 14th, 2008 09:26 pm |
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Perhaps this has already been addressed and someone can point me in the right direction....
College stats for SAT ranges generally show similar ranges for Math and Reading, for example, Critical Reading 580-670, Math - 530 - 630.
What do they make of a student who scores on the high end for Reading (say, 650), but the low end for Math (for example, 540)?
Do schools have any preference for even SAT scores over lopsided ones (or vice versa)?
Or, what if a student takes the SAT twice, and needs to report both scores in order to show the best of each, but this also shows the worst of each? (Say, set one is 560 Math, 600 Reading, second set is 600 Math, 570 Reading?)
In this latter case, would it be better for the student just to report one set of scores?
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mattmom
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Posted: Thu Feb 14th, 2008 09:35 pm |
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| SATs all get reported--you can't send in just one set. For a few years there was score choice for SAT IIs (the subject tests) but never for SAT I. Schools will generally do the composite though and take the highest score in each section--looks better for them too!
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jocelynDAD
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Posted: Thu Feb 14th, 2008 11:32 pm |
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MRS Aa:
Welcome to the wonderful world of "noone really knows the answer" 
While your question seems logicall and worthy of a clear answer the truth of the matter IMO and experience is "Who Knows"!
Your child will be applying for a school or schools with a singular group of other children - all of whom are applying for the first and only time during a single application season.
Information of previous classes is helpful but can never be accurate because of the simple fact that that was data on children who have all moved on.
The admission office at most schools (leaving out the so called top 20 or 30) have only a guess at the number of applicants and even less of a guess as to the comparative SAT/ACT scores, GPA averages, number of males/females, in state of OOS, FA needs or full pay potentials.
Now, logically their guessimation will come within previous historical data, but by no means is it guaranteed.
Example: Without any direct checking, I would feel comfortable in stating that Appalachia (sp) State undoubtedly received many more applications this fall and spring than they were anticipating. (Why: they beat Michigan in September in football).
Your child will enter into a competition (of sorts) when the application is submitted.
Based on that school's past history and current expectations, the initial reading will probably result in a basic category placement. However, after the bulk (or all) of the applications have been received and categorized the second reading or selection might elevate or reduce your child 'rating' within that application class.
Now special items like Legacy, athletics, special skills (Art/Music/other), ancestry, OOS or other geographic elements (depending on the individual schools concerns etc) also come into play in varied and unknowable fashions.
The joke that the school who is looking for a left handed BB pitcher who is a flutist and wants to study Russian would give the left handed BB pitcher, who is a flutist and wants to study Russian a solid chance, except that three other students with exactly those 'qualities' have already applied and the school is only going to take one such stucent - highlights (to me anyway) the arbitrateness of the entire process.
Back to the SAT scores question, it will drive you batty trying to 'figure it out'. All SAT scores are sunmitted and as stated most if not all colleges take the highest score in each category and use that number for evaluation. If your child is high in one and lower in the other, how will that effect her/his application, really 'noone knows'
BTW this is a direct relation of that famous person of childhood fame "Noone Did it".
If you asked ten or fifty adcon to give you an answer as to which (Math or Reading) is more important or rated higher, you surely would get the answer "it depends" far more than any other answer IMO.
The only advise I would suggest is to check (via the schools site and other guides - Fiske -Princeton Review - College Board - U-CAN Profiles) - get their data and guide your child accordingly.
Oh and continue to ask questions on Carolyn's site - never hurts to ask! 
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Mrs. Aardvark
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Posted: Fri Feb 15th, 2008 12:11 am |
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Schools will generally do the composite though and take the highest score in each section--looks better for them too!
If schools are looking carefully at an application, it seems counterintuitive that they would simply disregard the weaker score and only take into account the stronger one. If the adcoms are really looking at the "total package," wouldn't taking into account each of multiple scores contribute to an understanding of the student?
Since the ACT and SAT are completely separate beasts, if a student takes both tests, I'm guessing that one chooses to send one or the other test score to schools?Last edited on Fri Feb 15th, 2008 12:12 am by Mrs. Aardvark
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DesperateDad
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| Joined: | Tue Mar 14th, 2006 |
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Posted: Fri Feb 15th, 2008 02:50 am |
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| In many cases, the reader may not even see the lower score -- interns/clerks/volunteers complete a summary data form on the outside of the file. On that form, they write the gpa + highest composite SAT score, or if ACT is higher, that score. Thus, the reader would have to dig thru the file to find the lower score.
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outwest
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Posted: Fri Feb 15th, 2008 06:38 am |
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Desperate Dad;
When you say they usually write 'the highest composite score' on the outside of the envelope, do you mean they take the highest in each of the three sections?
ex: 1st test: CR700 M600 W800
2nd test: CR650 M700 W750
They would write on the outside:
CR700 M700 W800 ?
Because, that looks a heck of a lot better. 
Which gpa do they use?
Do they use the weighted one?
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mattmom
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Posted: Fri Feb 15th, 2008 11:56 am |
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My children are a few years past the application process but when they were applying the SAT was only two parts so easier to mix and match higher scores. Whether that was done by having a clerk put the higher numbers on the exterior of a folder or by an admissions officer doing an initial review of an application I don't know. How SAT scores are handled is probably one of those questions that you could ask an admissions officer at most schools because it is basic policy, one of the more transparent parts of the admission process and maybe even indicated on the school's Web site.
Regarding the GPA calculations, again, going back a few years, I remember at an info session at Colgate an admissions staffer saying very specifically that they take the basic unweighted high GPA and then reweight according to thiri own formula; I don't know if all other schools do this but assume most do since grading varies so widelyLast edited on Fri Feb 15th, 2008 12:03 pm by mattmom
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Northeastmom
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Posted: Fri Feb 15th, 2008 01:20 pm |
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About gpa- At most of the info sessions that I have attended the schools told us that they recalculate the gpa. That makes sense since some high schools add .5 for honors, 1.0 for APs. Other schools do not even offer AP classes, and so on. Also, some colleges told us that they do not use grades in classes which are not required for admission. I do not know how those schools include 5 years of a foreign language into the mix if they only require 2 years for admission, and I imagine that each school that only looks at courses required for admission might handle this a bit differently too.
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DesperateDad
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Posted: Fri Feb 15th, 2008 03:45 pm |
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outwest: yes, 700/700/800.
Similar to mattmom and nemom, I too have heard from colleges that they recalculate gpa since there are so many variations (4 point scale, 5 point scale, 6 point scale, 100 point scale, etc), and bcos they want to exclude non-academic classes. However, I'm not convinced that is true due to the sheer volume of their applications. For example, Harvard will receive thousands of applications the first week of January and they have to make decisions by March 31. It would literally require an army of workers to input all the data to recalc the gpa's; I just don't believe it possible due to the expense and chance of input error. However, this is just pure speculation on my part.
OTOH, since students self-report thier scores online to the UCs. UC readers do have available every conceivable gpa calculation: Soph-Jr only, both weighted and unweighted, as well as capped and uncapped, and Frosh-Jr grades. UC readers even receive a gpa 'rank' report relative to other applicants from that HS (which is rather interesting since the UC's officially claim that class rank is not a admissions factor).
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Consolation
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| Joined: | Mon Apr 9th, 2007 |
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Posted: Fri Feb 15th, 2008 09:35 pm |
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DesperateDad wrote:
Similar to mattmom and nemom, I too have heard from colleges that they recalculate gpa since there are so many variations (4 point scale, 5 point scale, 6 point scale, 100 point scale, etc), and bcos they want to exclude non-academic classes. However, I'm not convinced that is true due to the sheer volume of their applications. For example, Harvard will receive thousands of applications the first week of January and they have to make decisions by March 31. It would literally require an army of workers to input all the data to recalc the gpa's; I just don't believe it possible due to the expense and chance of input error. However, this is just pure speculation on my part.
At Yale someone asked in the info session and they specifically said that they did not recalculate GPA, instead accepting "however your high school chooses to do it."
I have wondered whether schools that used to do so have stopped, due to the sheer volume of applications.
I've also wondered how much it disadvantages kids from HS like ours that do not weight, or individual kids like mine who has taken a more difficult course schedule that some fellow applicants to the same schools. (I mean fellow applicants from his class at his HS, of course.)
Last edited on Fri Feb 15th, 2008 09:36 pm by Consolation
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Northeastmom
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Posted: Fri Feb 15th, 2008 10:41 pm |
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| I used to think this about reading the essays, but at the school my son attends (16,000 undergrads) the essays are read. My son's freshman English professor was one of the readers. This is why I believe that they do recalculate gpa as well.
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