To many college applicants, the end-game to their SAT’s is securing that score which will be good enough as a gate pass into their aspired schools. Well, there is nothing wrong with that notion but there’s nothing right about it either. What folks don’t realize is that College Admission Officers routinely go beyond the overall SAT score and assess the individual attainments in the Critical Reading, Math and Writing sections. Of course, there are genuine reasons for this practice.
The SAT is a test fundamentally designed to determine college readiness from the angle of well-roundedness. It follows then that institutions which employ the test will surely be looking for evenness among the respective SAT Component Scores of applicants in considering their admissibility, and even for their course and program placement or
scholarship eligibility and such, thereafter.
A high variance among the individual SAT Component Scores will be perceived as weakness in the low scoring component rather than strength in the high scoring one. So against the backdrop of “Super Score”, why not treat the 3 SAT components as 3 separate mini-SAT’s and set their goals at similar levels for balance? It’s a human tendency for people to dwell on what they are good at and avoid what they are not. In undertaking SAT prep, it should be the other way round.
Lower scores mean greater upside potential – any serious high school Senior would attest to that from experience. Individual score percentiles are also carried in Score Reports. They are the indicators of the candidate’s topical proficiencies relative to those of others who have taken the same test, and are known to be key factors in admission
considerations by universities. Also noteworthy is the SAT Essay score and the Essay itself may be cross-checked against the Application Essays which are submitted with college applications so they better tally in standards.
There’s more to SAT results than the overall composite score. The details of the SAT Component Scores contained in the Score Report have a more profound bearing on college acceptance than most people think.
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