1820 SAT on 2005. Augh!

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Some 4 years ago, I said, what the heck, and sat down for a SAT I test with no prior prep lessons, or anything of the sort. I live outside of the US, so I've never had any form of US-flavored education and to my ghastly horror once I finished the dizzying 5-6 hour-long ordeal (compared to the 2-2.5 hour papers that I'm used to), I discovered that I was part of the pioneer batch who took the new format, and nobody knew how the results were going to turn out.

So, this was what I got:

Critical Reading: 610
Math: 650
Writing: 560

Needless to say, I think I bombed it. I think I was expecting myself to get at least 2000, but, sigh.

Anyhow, I'm thinking of applying to a stateside college now. Is 1820 any good?

(Quoted from Yahoo answers.)

I thought 1600 was the highest score possible.

TT - Each section of the SAT maxes out at 800 and most of the time people only look at the Math and verbal combined.

Your score isn't a bad one, but its not fantastic. I think it would be a good idea to bring it up a few points to improve your chances of getting accepted.

Retaking that thing makes all the difference. Seriously.

The second time I took the SAT, I was aiming to get just 10 points higher in order to put myself in the range to be considered for a larger scholarship.
My lowest, statistically "most likely to improve upon a second testing," score was in math - so this was the main part I 'studied' to improve on; just reviewing some key-concepts, triangles, shortcuts, etc.
My math score was 20 points lower than your own, actually. -_-''

Well, at the end of the second testing, my math score improved, as I had hoped, by EXACTLY 10 points - but then my critical reading score unexpectedly grew 90 points and my writing score grew 10 points.

So, on a second taking, my score improved not 10, but a whopping 110 points - with nothing additional besides experience (and a brief math review) altering my approach to the test.

~~~~ back to OP's question ~~~

So, yes. Definitely retake if you want to improve your acceptance/monetary grant chances a bit.

My advice:
I'd recommend looking over some latin prefixes/roots of words if you want to improve your verbal score - you can use them to figure out the really weird words. I have a very rudimentary knowledge of latin - I've never taken a latin class in my life. But the few prefixes/roots I did recognize, used in conjunction with the given context clues, helped me exponentially on the SAT. (:

For the essay, it helps to go in with possible examples/evidence already in mind for your response.
I have a friend that got a perfect score for the essay portion using only examples from pop culture!
For that same essay prompt/topic, I used the diminishing oil reserves on our planet, their ethical implications and connection to politics as my evidence.
Sounds scholarly in theory, but I had no idea what i was saying. I'm hardly an expert on politics OR oil - I just got nervous and tried to overcompensate. And my score showed that they noticed (and did not like) that I had a limited understanding of what I chose for my own evidence.
Now I know that the essay doesn't test how much you know - it tests how well you can use what you know. I should have talked about something that I knew about - like biology, movies or maybe a short story.
What I'm trying to get at here is that it's best to use examples that you're familiar/comfortable with in your essay response. You can usually stretch almost anything a bit to make it fit with the prompt. They write the prompt so that any kind of evidence can support it - Scientific, literary, personal or cultural. Make it easy for yourself and work with what you know.

Also, since its been 4 years since you last saw the math part - especially if you haven't been in school since then - you should probably look over some of the stuff you knew before. It couldn't hurt to review and maybe refresh some concepts you may have forgotten since your first testing.

Also, know that no score on a second testing is ever counted against you - your total score can only improve. (:



I hope my rant helped! I still regret that awful evidence I used on my essay - feel like an idiot for making it so hard on myself. But I suppose hindsight is 20/20, yes?

Good luck!

Good for you Tim. ACT looks better.

That's exactly what I got, after two tries... that's really good, espescially for your first time! I'd be proud!

You should be able to get into a good number of schools with that score. I applied to mostly art schools, but I did get into the one established university that i applied to with that score. They look at everything, grades and extracurriculur activities, so if you're strong in other areas as well you should do well.

And yeah, Tim, it's 2400 now, after the writing section got added.

When you got your test back, did it list the percentiles on it? If it did, go by those to give you a general idea of how you did. When I got my ACT back, it had the percentiles for every indvidual score and the composite score. If you already know what college you want to get into, go to the admissions section on their website and see what SAT scores they want out of their students. However, if you have lots of extracirriculars and whatnot, you can usually get away with a slightly lower score than what they're generally looking for.

What if we don't have these extra-curricular activities? I heard the nasty story of an Asian American being rejected by Princeton (Jian Li) because he did not have these extracurricular despite his fantastic grades...

In Alberta, we have PATs ( Provincial Achievement Tests) for grades 3, 6, and 9.In grade 12, it is Provincial Diploma Exams, which are separated as Math, Social, English, and Science (Science 30 OR Physics, Biology, and Chemistry).50 percent is passing.

Can we take the exam overseas? Btw you're almost on par with Al Gore's scores...

You know, I never knew they changed the SAT until I saw this thread and thought "1820? Is that a typo or a joke?" Maybe putting just my total score on my resume wasn't the best idea. I wonder how many potential employers saw my score and not knowing it was out of 1600 thought "man, this guy's an idiot. How'd he even finish college?"