1820/2400 on the SAT. I'm screwed

[The Pentium Guy]

I got a 2300 on the new SAT, the writing section screwed me.

800 Math
800 Reading
700 Writing

If only I'd seen this article beforehand. I especially like this part:

I can't see that page becuase I don't have an account at that forum. But anyways, wow a
perfect score on math and english. Keep it up.

 

[LongCoolMother]

ivy league is out of the question at 1800. id say you'll need at the very LEAST 2000 to get into schools like cornell. along with a very excellent GPA/courses.

im sitting with a 4.4 weighted GPA and 2100 SATs and planning to apply to UC Berkeley this coming fall.

 

[The Pentium Guy]

ivy league is out of the question at 1800. id say you'll need at the very LEAST 2000 to get into schools like cornell. along with a very excellent GPA/courses.

I doubt I'm getting into cornell anyways. Again, I havn't researched colleges yet so I thought that cornell would be a mid-high end school, as opposed to a top 15 school.

 

[mercanucaribe]

Definately do not take the ACT instead of SAT. Take both, and as many SAT IIs as you can. I tested out of a lot that way.

 

[HombrePequeno]

That's not bad. I got a 1200 on the old one (which would translate to about 1800) and I got into the University of Washington. It's not the best school but there are a lot of great programs here.

 

[newnameman]

Originally posted by: The Pentium Guy
I can't see that page becuase I don't have an account at that forum.

MIT official faults grading of SAT writing test

Les Perelman says length counts for too much of a student's score.

By Samuel G. Freedman

New York Times News Service


CAMBRIDGE, Mass. - In March, Les Perelman attended a national college writing conference and sat in on a panel on the new SAT writing test.

Perelman is one of the directors of undergraduate writing at Massachusetts Institute of Technology. He did doctoral work on testing and develops writing assessments for entering MIT freshmen. He fears that the new 25-minute SAT essay test that started in March is actually teaching high school students terrible writing habits.

"It appeared to me that regardless of what a student wrote, the longer the essay, the higher the score," Perelman said. A man on the panel from the College Board disagreed.

"He told me I was jumping to conclusions," Perelman said. "Because MIT is a place where everything is backed by data, I went to my hotel room, counted the words in those essays and put them in an Excel spreadsheet on my laptop."

In the next weeks, Perelman studied every graded sample SAT essay that the College Board made public. He looked at the 15 samples in the ScoreWrite book that the College Board distributed to high schools nationwide to prepare students for the new writing section. He reviewed the 23 graded essays on the College Board Web site meant as a guide for students and the 16 writing "anchor" samples the College Board used to train graders to properly mark essays.

He was stunned by how complete the correlation was between length and score.

"I have never found a quantifiable predictor in 25 years of grading that was anywhere near as strong as this one," he said. "If you just graded them based on length without ever reading them, you'd be right over 90 percent of the time."

The shortest essays, typically 100 words, got the lowest grade of one. The longest, about 400 words, got the top grade of six. In between, there was virtually a direct match between length and grade.

He was also struck by all the factual errors in even the top essays. An essay on the Civil War, given a perfect six, describes the nation being changed forever by the "firing of two shots at Fort Sumter in late 1862." (Actually, it was in early 1861, and, according to Battle Cry of Freedom by James M. McPherson, it was "33 hours of bombardment by 4,000 shot and shells.")

Perelman contacted the College Board and was surprised to learn that on the new SAT essay, students are not penalized for incorrect facts.

The official guide for scorers explains: "Writers may make errors in facts or information that do not affect the quality of their essays. For example, a writer may state 'The American Revolution began in 1842' or " 'Anna Karenina,' a play by the French author Joseph Conrad, was a very upbeat literary work.' " (Actually, that's 1775; a novel by the Russian Leo Tolstoy; and poor Anna hurls herself under a train.) No matter. "You are scoring the writing, and not the correctness of facts."

How to prepare for such an essay?

"I would advise writing as long as possible," said Perelman, "and include lots of facts, even if they're made up."

This is not what he teaches his MIT students. "It's exactly what we don't want to teach our kids," he said.

SAT graders are told to read an essay just once and spend two to three minutes per essay, and Perelman is now adept at rapid-fire SAT grading. A reporter held up a sample essay far enough away so it could not be read, and he was still able to guess the correct grade by its bulk and shape.

"That's a 4," he said. "It looks like a 4."

A report released last week by the National Council of Teachers of English mirrors Perelman's criticism of the new SAT essay. It cautions that a single, 25-minute writing test ignores the most basic lesson of writing - that good writing is rewriting. It warns that the SAT is pushing schools toward "formulaic" writing instruction.

When the new SAT was announced two years ago, College Board officials described it as a tool that could transform American education, forcing schools to better teach writing.

A "great social experiment," Time magazine said.

In an interview, five top College Board officials strongly defended the writing test but sounded more muted about its usefulness.

"The SAT essay should not be the primary way kids learn to write," said Wayne Camara, vice president for research. "It's one basic writing skill. If that's all the writing your high school English department is teaching, you have a problem."

They said that while there was a correlation between writing long and a high score, it was not as significant as Perelman stated. Graders also reward good short essays, they said, but the College Board erred by failing to release such samples to the public.

"We will change that," said Chiara Coletti, a vice president.

As to facts not mattering, they said it was a necessary accommodation on such a short, high-pressure test.

"We know students don't write well when they're anxious," said Ed Hardin, a College Board test specialist. "We don't want them not to go forward with that little detail. Our attitude is go right ahead with that missing date or fact and readers should be instructed not to count off for that."

 

[imported_goku]

Originally posted by: MrCodeDude

Originally posted by: goku2100

Originally posted by: pinkeywear

Originally posted by: DLeRium
So what's a good score nowadays.

I remember when ppl at my school were like OMFG I FAILED SATs (ohh.. 1430 ... yea Asian fail).. Rofl.

My friend took SAT over and over just go get his 800 math but could never break 1540... hah... 800 verbal but 740 math? he was insane cuz we were all in calculus, yet we screwed up the dumbest things on SAT math...

The average SAT score is now 1500.

You can convert old SAT score ranges into the new score version since the verbal and math sections are still worth the same (800). All they did was add a writing section which is also worth 800 points.

So if you want to know (for example) what a 1500 on the old SAT would be on the new SAT just:
divide 1500/1600 = .9375, then multiply 2400 by .9375 which would equal 2250.

WRONG! They've got algebra II on the test now instead of a maximum of geometry....

I took Algebra II freshman year of HS. I think Algebra II would be easier than Geometry. All those angle stuffs.

It's a little strange, when I took algebra I got a B both semesters with out trying very hard at all. When I took geometry the following year, I got a C the second semester (was trying as hard as I did in algebra the previous year) tried much harder and got a B second semester.
When I took the HS exit exam, I did much much better on the geometry (missed 1 problem) and did horrid on the algebra (60% ACK!). This could be due to the fact I hadn't had algebra for a year but who knows. It's even more interesting that I did well in geometry because my teacher had told the class there would be a lot of questions we hadn't covered yet...

 

[imported_goku]

Originally posted by: newnameman

Originally posted by: The Pentium Guy
I can't see that page becuase I don't have an account at that forum.

MIT official faults grading of SAT writing test

Les Perelman says length counts for too much of a student's score.

By Samuel G. Freedman

New York Times News Service


CAMBRIDGE, Mass. - In March, Les Perelman attended a national college writing conference and sat in on a panel on the new SAT writing test.

Perelman is one of the directors of undergraduate writing at Massachusetts Institute of Technology. He did doctoral work on testing and develops writing assessments for entering MIT freshmen. He fears that the new 25-minute SAT essay test that started in March is actually teaching high school students terrible writing habits.

"It appeared to me that regardless of what a student wrote, the longer the essay, the higher the score," Perelman said. A man on the panel from the College Board disagreed.

"He told me I was jumping to conclusions," Perelman said. "Because MIT is a place where everything is backed by data, I went to my hotel room, counted the words in those essays and put them in an Excel spreadsheet on my laptop."

In the next weeks, Perelman studied every graded sample SAT essay that the College Board made public. He looked at the 15 samples in the ScoreWrite book that the College Board distributed to high schools nationwide to prepare students for the new writing section. He reviewed the 23 graded essays on the College Board Web site meant as a guide for students and the 16 writing "anchor" samples the College Board used to train graders to properly mark essays.

He was stunned by how complete the correlation was between length and score.

"I have never found a quantifiable predictor in 25 years of grading that was anywhere near as strong as this one," he said. "If you just graded them based on length without ever reading them, you'd be right over 90 percent of the time."

The shortest essays, typically 100 words, got the lowest grade of one. The longest, about 400 words, got the top grade of six. In between, there was virtually a direct match between length and grade.

He was also struck by all the factual errors in even the top essays. An essay on the Civil War, given a perfect six, describes the nation being changed forever by the "firing of two shots at Fort Sumter in late 1862." (Actually, it was in early 1861, and, according to Battle Cry of Freedom by James M. McPherson, it was "33 hours of bombardment by 4,000 shot and shells.")

Perelman contacted the College Board and was surprised to learn that on the new SAT essay, students are not penalized for incorrect facts.

The official guide for scorers explains: "Writers may make errors in facts or information that do not affect the quality of their essays. For example, a writer may state 'The American Revolution began in 1842' or " 'Anna Karenina,' a play by the French author Joseph Conrad, was a very upbeat literary work.' " (Actually, that's 1775; a novel by the Russian Leo Tolstoy; and poor Anna hurls herself under a train.) No matter. "You are scoring the writing, and not the correctness of facts."

How to prepare for such an essay?

"I would advise writing as long as possible," said Perelman, "and include lots of facts, even if they're made up."

This is not what he teaches his MIT students. "It's exactly what we don't want to teach our kids," he said.

SAT graders are told to read an essay just once and spend two to three minutes per essay, and Perelman is now adept at rapid-fire SAT grading. A reporter held up a sample essay far enough away so it could not be read, and he was still able to guess the correct grade by its bulk and shape.

"That's a 4," he said. "It looks like a 4."

A report released last week by the National Council of Teachers of English mirrors Perelman's criticism of the new SAT essay. It cautions that a single, 25-minute writing test ignores the most basic lesson of writing - that good writing is rewriting. It warns that the SAT is pushing schools toward "formulaic" writing instruction.

When the new SAT was announced two years ago, College Board officials described it as a tool that could transform American education, forcing schools to better teach writing.

A "great social experiment," Time magazine said.

In an interview, five top College Board officials strongly defended the writing test but sounded more muted about its usefulness.

"The SAT essay should not be the primary way kids learn to write," said Wayne Camara, vice president for research. "It's one basic writing skill. If that's all the writing your high school English department is teaching, you have a problem."

They said that while there was a correlation between writing long and a high score, it was not as significant as Perelman stated. Graders also reward good short essays, they said, but the College Board erred by failing to release such samples to the public.

"We will change that," said Chiara Coletti, a vice president.

As to facts not mattering, they said it was a necessary accommodation on such a short, high-pressure test.

"We know students don't write well when they're anxious," said Ed Hardin, a College Board test specialist. "We don't want them not to go forward with that little detail. Our attitude is go right ahead with that missing date or fact and readers should be instructed not to count off for that."

LOL, I guess I should do pretty well on the writing portion because I can write a 5 page paper on why a black TV remote is better than a Silver TV remote...

 

[Leper Messiah]

um. I got a 1170 when I was in 8th grade, 590 680 math/english. I was happy. If I did mine now, IDK. 800 on the writting and vocab though. math, depends.

 

[bharok]

Originally posted by: mercanucaribe

Originally posted by: astralusion
cornell is a mid to high end school...but it is in the athletic conference known as the ivy league...as with your scores...no idea...took them when they were out of 1600 and only took them once, so don't konw much about how much they can improve

Cornell is Ivy league.

I go there for engineering.
trust me it is no piece of cake ...

 

[bharok]

Originally posted by: Goosemaster

Originally posted by: mercanucaribe

Originally posted by: astralusion
cornell is a mid to high end school...but it is in the athletic conference known as the ivy league...as with your scores...no idea...took them when they were out of 1600 and only took them once, so don't konw much about how much they can improve

Cornell is Ivy league.

yeah..unless you happen to be a pretentious fvk


<---cornell is his dream school

what do you want to do there
im in the Electrial and Computer Engineering Program

 

[bharok]

Originally posted by: astralusion

Originally posted by: mercanucaribe

Originally posted by: astralusion

Originally posted by: mercanucaribe

Originally posted by: astralusion
cornell is a mid to high end school...but it is in the athletic conference known as the ivy league...as with your scores...no idea...took them when they were out of 1600 and only took them once, so don't konw much about how much they can improve

Cornell is Ivy league.

uhm yeah...that's what i said

Regardless of the Ivy League's football origin, it's a top 15 school, not a mid to high end school.

By the way, if your grades were low and you brought them up, you aren't getting into Cornell.

sorry if i was misunderstood...the OP was saying that he didn't think of cornell as ivy league, instead he thought it was a mid to high end school...and all i was saying was that cornell is in the ivy league, and while it is a good school, it is not typically thought to be at exactly the same level as princeton, harvard yale...still a very good school

if he wants to do engineering
it does not matter
as you notice princton havard yale are not really known for engineering
cornell is ivy league and is in the top 10 for most of its engineering programs
having low grades is not going to help in getting in
concentrate on math for enginnering dont worry about english or writing as much (this does not mean do not study them)
math ~700 should be easily do able if you want to be an engineer.

 

[TNM93]

Originally posted by: MrCodeDude
Will you get into Cornell? Probably not. A 600 across the board is nothing to be proud about. I got a 740 on math, 590 on english, for a total of 1330/1600 and people said I wouldn't be able to get into Engineering @ Cal Poly. I did get in, but if there was doubt over my score of me getting into a STATE school, you're not getting into Cornell. That being said, my friend who got a 1570, 3.8 GPA and National Merit Semifinalist applied to Cornell, got in, but didn't get a good amount of financial aide.

Cal Poly = overrated. I couldn't get into Cal Poly but was accepted to UCSB. Last I heard, UCSB was ranked righer than Cal Poly. They have ridiculous admissions there and are being sued by MECHA last I heard for turning down top notch hispanic students. I would say that school is the exception, not typical.

 

[ShazK]

It was good I took the last "old" test before the "new" one, because I got a 790 Math on the old one and a 740 Math on the new one, and basically the opposite for reading, and apparently they take the better of your scores per thingy... and after those SAT II's in June I was done with my standardized tests, not counting APs, for high school. Whee.

 

[A5]

Originally posted by: The Pentium Guy

ivy league is out of the question at 1800. id say you'll need at the very LEAST 2000 to get into schools like cornell. along with a very excellent GPA/courses.

I doubt I'm getting into cornell anyways. Again, I havn't researched colleges yet so I thought that cornell would be a mid-high end school, as opposed to a top 15 school.

Research your colleges first, then see who is good at what you want to do, and see what kind of admissions standards they have.

 

[Ionizer86]

If the writing portion is what's holding you back the most, see if you can get your hands on one of the old Princeton Review Cracking the SAT's (try the library). It was a great book for working on the math and verbal, but the writing section was incredibly helpful for me! Amazingly, they packed that entire section into about 20 pages. Anyways, I worked up from a 65 on the writing section of the first PSAT I took to an 800 on the SAT II Writing by junior year. Good stuff 🙂

 

[LongCoolMother]

Originally posted by: bharok

Originally posted by: Goosemaster

Originally posted by: mercanucaribe

Originally posted by: astralusion
cornell is a mid to high end school...but it is in the athletic conference known as the ivy league...as with your scores...no idea...took them when they were out of 1600 and only took them once, so don't konw much about how much they can improve

Cornell is Ivy league.

yeah..unless you happen to be a pretentious fvk


<---cornell is his dream school

what do you want to do there
im in the Electrial and Computer Engineering Program

my cousin also does EE at Cornell. Perhaps you may know him. Felix Lee? He's an undergrad.

 

[HombrePequeno]

Also where you went to school doesn't hold much weight in if you get a job somewhere. You don't have to go into thousands of dollars of debt to get a degree from a decent college. I would advise you to go somewhere cheap (a state college) but has a good engineering program.

 

[RollWave]

Originally posted by: The Pentium Guy
*Gasp* Panick!
Jeez... This is bad....

I got a 640 in math, 600 in english and 580 in writing..... and this was on a practice SAT. My target goal is 2100 (when I take the SATs in 6 months). Reasonable? (Considering that I blew these). I'm working my ass off getting my score up.

Now another question comes to mind.... I'm not looking to get into Ivy league obviously, but can you get into a decent collage getting an 1800? Good meaning things like Northeastern, Cornell, such and such.

Sorry, just had to rant a bit. I hate ETS (guys that make the SAT) now...

-The Pentium Guy

Northeastern sucks. Northwestern is the awesome school you may be thinking of. 😉

 

[RMSistight]

I got an 890 on the SAT's when it was still out of 1600. I suck at tests.

 

[BigJ]

Practice, practice, practice.

With ~1400 on the old test (probably 2000-2100 on these new ones), you can basically get into any of the better (not best) colleges you want (as long as you have the GPA and ECs to go along with it). Originally, I scored 150pts lower on the SATs the first time than I did the second. All I really did was look over some of the tricks the SAT uses and pulled off the score I was aiming for.

You still have a bunch of time (6 months is a huge amount of time), so you should be able to break 2000.

 

[RollWave]

I did horrible 3 years ago. That 1440 really hurt my application. As an Indian brother I can tell you that yes its going to be much harder to get into some of the top tiered schools that you want to go to. You need to present to them that you're more than just a nerd. Oh, and you'll need a better SAT score or have REALLY good ECs. When I interviewed at some of those schools they want to know more about your interests and curiousities rather than all the crap on your resume. If you dont play sports or do other cool things outside of school you dont have a shot.

I got into Penn, Duke, UofC, and Northwestern. I ended up choosing the last one because of the atmosphere and because my two older sisters went. Its a great school that will challenge you until the day you graduate. For that reason I believe NU ranked #1 for academic experience a couple years ago. In addition, I love being around BIG10 sports even if we're not that great, and being next to Chicago makes for a GREAT night life.

Get your sh!t together and take 20 or so practice tests. I remember that the only time I studied was for the 3 weeks before I took the test. I took a different practice test each day after school and just somehow subconsciously learned how to take the test better. Thats the best advice I can give. TAKE A TON OF TESTS!!

 

[mwtgg]

Dude, you're a freaking dumbass. You'll never get into college.

 

[step-dawg]

Glad you figured out how to spell college. Now you can do better on your writing section.

But seriously, you have 6 months. plenty of time. I think you will benefit from doing more practice tests. Most people benefit from practicing taking these types of standardized tests. The more comfortable you are with recognizing the types of problems on the test, the better you will score. I know taking a bunch of practice tests is what helped me get a good mcat score. but then again, I took the SAT in '96 or so it could be really different now.

 

[digitalsm]

Originally posted by: konichiwa

not looking to get into Ivy league obviously

...

Cornell, such and such

😕

Cornell is the easiest Ivy to get into. Seeing as most of Cornell is SUNY. From what I understand its also one of the hardest academically because it doesnt have the grade inflation the other Ivy's are infamous for.