Casual SAT question from a Brit

September 30, 2016 8:14 AM

Reading Stephen King's End of Watch recently (no spoilers!) reminded me of a question I've had for a while regarding SAT scores. In the book, the girl is worried that she's only going to get x score (400 perhaps?) on the Maths test. If this happened, would her chances of getting into college disappear? Or would it affect which sort of colleges she could get into? If she happened to be a genius at everything else but sucked at maths would that mean no Ivy League for her? Bonus question: could you retake them endlessly?

I suppose I'm curious because in the UK maths was (when I was in school) only compulsory until GCSEs - you had to get an A-C grade to do A levels but there were no requirements beyond that.

posted by threetwentytwo to Education (15 answers total)

If she happened to be a genius at everything else but sucked at maths would that mean no Ivy League for her?

With a score of 400 she would be in the second lowest decile (doing better than only around 16% of test takers). It would be extraordinary if she were admitted. She would have to demonstrate that this was not representative of her ability (perhaps by showing she'd gotten high marks in high school courses).

If this happened, would her chances of getting into college disappear? Or would it affect which sort of colleges she could get into?

There are many post-secondary educational institutions in the United States that are quite good and not particularly selective. Some are selective, but don't require standardized test scores (this is unusual).

Could you retake them endlessly?

Pretty much.
posted by phrontist at 8:23 AM on September 30, 2016 [3 favorites]

I got into an Ivy and several other highly selective small liberal arts schools with SAT scores of math in the high 400s and verbal in the almost-800, and that's true of other friends from my (public) high school. Universities here use SAT scores as one point in a constellation of points as a way to make admissions decisions. Other points include your classroom grades, extracurriculars, community service, etc.
posted by rtha at 8:25 AM on September 30, 2016 [2 favorites]

If any part of your SAT score is low enough, it won't prevent you from going to college, but it will make admissions officers look askance. I suspect most people with a 400 on a subject (on a 200-800 scale) don't get into their first choice.

Bonus question: could you retake them endlessly?

Yes, at (currently) $45/$57 a pop, but the tests are only administered on certain dates.
posted by Etrigan at 8:25 AM on September 30, 2016 [1 favorite]

Not only can you retake them endlessly, you can pay for tutoring on the tests and specific sections.
posted by Lesser Shrew at 8:26 AM on September 30, 2016

It's a big part of college admissions, but many schools no longer even require the SAT (or any kind of admissions test) so you can certainly go to college with even abysmal scores, if you want to. Most colleges are looking for a well-rounded student, so someone who excelled in other areas but was horrible at math would probably be looked at very closely by most collges, and would probably not have a chance at an Ivy or other prestigious school, given how competitive admissions at those schools are. And while the rules and procedures for the SAT change almost annually at this point, my understanding is that you can retake the test endlessly, but when you report your scores to colleges, they see ALL of your scores, so using multiple retakes to ace the test would be immediately obvious.
posted by Rock Steady at 8:26 AM on September 30, 2016

There have been some changes in the SATs in the last few years, but top scores for each Math and Reading were 800 for years.

Yes, bad SAT scores bode poorly for acceptance at top colleges, but it's not necessarily fatal to your chances of getting into a good school. Your HS transcript is more important, and there are sone excellent colleges for which SATs scores are optional.

I would add that in many states, acceptance a state university is guaranteed by an excellent High School GPA or class standing. These universities are not Harvard, but they are mostly not a barrier to success in later life.
posted by SemiSalt at 8:26 AM on September 30, 2016 [1 favorite]

A lot of colleges use the SAT as a key barometer, along with GPA, of students' potential. Some probably even have SAT cutoffs, below which they won't accept the student. Many years ago, when I was applying to colleges, I remember that they'd post a mean or median SAT score for their last accepted class, and it's higher at better schools. It's probably not much different than applying to college with a 2.0 GPA. Even if you have perfect SAT scores, schools that care about standardized testing are gonna side eye that low GPA.

While you *can* retake them endlessly, it would probably be hard to time that- I'm not sure how fast they send scores these days, but when I took them, it was a while before the scores came in the mail, I believe. Then you have to reregister for one of the 7 dates, and make sure the scores will come back before the college you're applying to needs them. I think a lot of people would take them junior and senior year, but more than that was less typical.
posted by quiet coyote at 8:27 AM on September 30, 2016

If she happened to be a genius at everything else but sucked at maths would that mean no Ivy League for her?

The Ivies and most private colleges do not have hard cutoffs. Meaning that while it might make it more difficult for her, it would not make it *impossible*. Generally, if you truly are a genius at one or several things, then you get a lot more leeway with the other indicators.
posted by vacapinta at 8:34 AM on September 30, 2016

Agreed with vacapinta. It's possible that the school would admit her with the stipulation that she take a remedial math course or something. Even if the school had a stated "minimum" math score I bet with a student so talented they could work around that.

If she was literally a genius and demonstrably so - high GPA, honors classes, AP (advanced placement) classes, good scores on AP tests (which some colleges will accept in lieu of introductory colleges courses), extracurricular activities in which she excelled, etc, I think any college would be interested.
posted by amicamentis at 9:00 AM on September 30, 2016

A lot of it depends on how extraordinary the rest of her personal package is. (Overcame great odds? The best damn English horn player in the lower 48 with competition prizes to prove it?) If there's nothing going for you beyond a great high school transcript, you will want to retake the SAT until it's pretty far above 400.
posted by batter_my_heart at 9:14 AM on September 30, 2016 [3 favorites]

A bad SAT score is likely to hurt her admission because it is a very easy preliminary cutoff for schools to use. Unless she had some other spectacular achievement (placing well in certain contests for example) she would probably not have the rest of her application even looked at. It's like screening a pile of resumes and ignoring any in Comic Sans.

(An excellent SAT score, however, is unlikely to help her much. As noted above, it is possible for strong students to game the system, especially if they come from more privileged backgrounds. At top schools the test scores are pretty much only used as minimum qualifications.)
posted by maryr at 9:22 AM on September 30, 2016

Note also that some colleges (though by no means all) require students to send all of their scores from each time they took the SAT. So even if you got a 400 one time, a 620 the next time, and a 750 the next, the college would see all of these scores. This would limit the utility of taking the test over & over until you got a good score.
posted by Johnny Assay at 9:26 AM on September 30, 2016

I just want to say that Johnny Assay above (as far as I know) is incorrect. You may choose which scores you submit to colleges/universities.
posted by kuanes at 12:02 PM on September 30, 2016

It's only been sometime in the past few years when the SAT started allowing students to submit scores from the sitting of their choice (instead of showing all scores taken in the past n years). So it depends on when the book was set. Students applying to colleges also have the option of taking the ACT, which is the SAT's competitor. Some students do a lot better on one test over the other.

Again, it depends on exactly when the book is set, but there have been an increasing number of schools that have been going test optional. In addition, community colleges do not require the SAT/ ACT, so she could go there before transferring to a 4 year (public) university.

Some colleges and universities may be more lenient of lower scores when accepting certain groups of applicants (e.g. first generation students, athletes, (children of) celebrities).
posted by oceano at 6:06 AM on October 2, 2016

It's only been sometime in the past few years when the SAT started allowing students to submit scores from the sitting of their choice (instead of showing all scores taken in the past n years). So it depends on when the book was set.

Also, as I said above, a sizeable minority of schools still require applicants to submit all of their scores from all test dates. The College Board maintains a list of score-use practices (PDF) for participating institutions. Scanning that list, I'd estimate that maybe one in three or one in four schools still require all SAT scores to be submitted.
posted by Johnny Assay at 8:36 AM on October 3, 2016