First time taking the SAT

1700 flat. First try no studying. wow?

1860 first time freshman year

I never took SAT classes but I did borrow a book or two from friends. Just read through any material I felt weak in, didn't really do any practice tests and I just knew the format of the test, guidelines, and question types. Even then, that "self study" was hard to avoid distractions. I'd feel like I was looking at the book for 15 minutes, then spend the rest of the hour surfing the web or playing games. First test I took I got 1910. Btw don't most people take it October of their Junior year?

I was 98th percentile on everything when I took the PSAT, I expect the SAT to be rather unchallenging.

Shottymaster wrote:

II expect the SAT to be rather unchallenging.

Depends on what scores you want to get

True.

1800+?
Anyone aiming for college can do it.
2000+?
Anyone aiming for a US-News-Top-30 college can/should do it.
2200+?
I tried twice, failed both times, though needless to say, if you're going for a top 10 college, you need a score above 2200.

forever emo

Some of my friends have very high SAT scores (I do think one girl had a 2350) and since I was with these people every day at school, I wanted to match up to them in scores. So even though my scores were lower, I was able to break 2000 because I wanted to be with my friends, most of whom broke 2000 on their first try. Most of them have indeed gone to very good schools, with a few going to the Ivies and others going to Berkeley or some other school that's almost an Ivy level.

You don't need fantastic SAT scores to make something of your life. I may have only got a 1730 myself but I still find testing rather redundant. If your going to do something with your life, your going to straight up do it. Some silly test doesn't have the final say.... Though it seems a lot of people at my school see it that way. Their just to caught up in books imo. Need to live a little.

Malicih wrote:

You don't need fantastic SAT scores to make something of your life. I may have only got a 1730 myself but I still find testing rather redundant. If your going to do something with your life, your going to straight up do it. Some silly test doesn't have the final say.... Though it seems a lot of people at my school see it that way. Their just to caught up in books imo. Need to live a little.

hue.

Anyways, Malicih is right that the SAT does not have the final say on your college decision. It's like a cherry on top of your application. If it's good, colleges go OH HOW NICE, and if it's a little bit worse than what they would expect out of someone with your GPA, they'd go eh, whatever.
Just don't deviate more than 200 points from where your peers are and you're safe.

One of my closest friends complains that the SAT only tests how well you study for it, such as how most of the material in it and how you have to start memorizing how the SAT tricks you and other crap never seemed to apply to real life applications.

And the SATs really are the cherry on top. This doesn't really apply to John I guess since he's applying for a CSU but iif you're shooting for those top colleges, you better have something more than just good grades and a good SAT score. The way I see it, for the top 30 schools, if everyone has good grades and top SAT scores, what's going to set you apart from the rest? Extracurriculars, recommendations, what you say in your essay. The SATs aren't everything but they're still somewhat important.

One SAT bullshit story:
My friend got 2400 on his SAT
Both of his parents went to Stanford
Stanford rejected him.

He's off to UC Berkeley in the fall, but this is just proof that the SAT is NOT a major decisive factor in your college apps.

Mephisto Phallus wrote:

One SAT bullshit story:
My friend got 2400 on his SAT
Both of his parents went to Stanford
Stanford rejected him.

He's off to UC Berkeley in the fall, but this is just proof that the SAT is NOT a major decisive factor in your college apps.

So much for the Stanford legacy. Guess it's not true that connections can get you into these colleges? Or was this just something special?
I just want to question something though, did your friend have any good extra-curriculars? Best my school had was 1 person waitlisted at Stanford and yet we still had people going to Ivies.

Blahblah677 wrote:

Mephisto Phallus wrote:

One SAT bullshit story:
My friend got 2400 on his SAT
Both of his parents went to Stanford
Stanford rejected him.

He's off to UC Berkeley in the fall, but this is just proof that the SAT is NOT a major decisive factor in your college apps.

So much for the Stanford legacy. Guess it's not true that connections can get you into these colleges? Or was this just something special?
I just want to question something though, did your friend have any good extra-curriculars? Best my school had was 1 person waitlisted at Stanford and yet we still had people going to Ivies.

Two-time national champion Speech and Debate
with this year, it's three.
Bunch of other volunteer work and clubs.

It's almost impossible to get into Stanford if you're an Asian male. They put more emphasis on affirmative action than GPA and test scores combined. I kid you not.

How high is "high enough"?

9001.

Shit.

Mephisto Phallus wrote:

They put more emphasis on affirmative action than GPA and test scores combined. I kid you not.

Isn't affirmative action admitting people based on their race because of an under-represented group on campus? I'd assume that on the college campus, the Asian male population would be smaller than certain other groups, or do they look at under-represented groups in the applicant pool?

Blahblah677 wrote:

Mephisto Phallus wrote:

They put more emphasis on affirmative action than GPA and test scores combined. I kid you not.

Isn't affirmative action admitting people based on their race because of an under-represented group on campus? I'd assume that on the college campus, the Asian male population would be smaller than certain other groups, or do they look at under-represented groups in the applicant pool?

under-represented groups.
Asians/Indians actually receive what could be called "negative action" from colleges due to the high number of qualified applicants, meaning that they limit the number of people of a certain race that can be accepted, whereas to a race that, as a whole, performs worse academically, will be accepted in larger numbers.
Example: Asian guy, 5.0 GPA, 2300 SAT, president of 9000 clubs. He does not stand out among other Asians, and colleges can only take a certain number of Asians, so he's screwed. (This actually happened to my friend, got rejected from MIT because he looked like every other Asian guy in the applicant pool). Say MIT can only take 20% Asians this year. Once they hit 20%, they're stopping.
Example II: Black guy, 4.0 GPA, 2000 SAT. He'll get into any private university he wants. Why? Because he's in the top percentile of African-American students in the USA. No matter how limited the space is in a college, affirmative action guarantees that he'll get in.
The UC system stopped affirmative action, and now look: Irvine is 60% Asian, Davis is 50% Asian, Berkeley is 45% Asian.

Mephisto Phallus wrote:

Blahblah677 wrote:

Isn't affirmative action admitting people based on their race because of an under-represented group on campus? I'd assume that on the college campus, the Asian male population would be smaller than certain other groups, or do they look at under-represented groups in the applicant pool?

under-represented groups.
Asians/Indians actually receive what could be called "negative action" from colleges due to the high number of qualified applicants, meaning that they limit the number of people of a certain race that can be accepted, whereas to a race that, as a whole, performs worse academically, will be accepted in larger numbers.
Example: Asian guy, 5.0 GPA, 2300 SAT, president of 9000 clubs. He does not stand out among other Asians, and colleges can only take a certain number of Asians, so he's screwed. (This actually happened to my friend, got rejected from MIT because he looked like every other Asian guy in the applicant pool). Say MIT can only take 20% Asians this year. Once they hit 20%, they're stopping.
Example II: Black guy, 4.0 GPA, 2000 SAT. He'll get into any private university he wants. Why? Because he's in the top percentile of African-American students in the USA. No matter how limited the space is in a college, affirmative action guarantees that he'll get in.
The UC system stopped affirmative action, and now look: Irvine is 60% Asian, Davis is 50% Asian, Berkeley is 45% Asian.

Looks like I'll be meeting a lot of Asians in Davis. And thanks for explaining that affirmative action. The fact it's applied to the applicant pool rather than looking at the campus diversity after the application decisions come in explains a lot. (I thought that affirmative action applied to how say Stanford wants a 20% Asian student body rather than choosing 20% of the Asians from the applicant pool).

Blahblah677 wrote:

Mephisto Phallus wrote:

under-represented groups.
Asians/Indians actually receive what could be called "negative action" from colleges due to the high number of qualified applicants, meaning that they limit the number of people of a certain race that can be accepted, whereas to a race that, as a whole, performs worse academically, will be accepted in larger numbers.
Example: Asian guy, 5.0 GPA, 2300 SAT, president of 9000 clubs. He does not stand out among other Asians, and colleges can only take a certain number of Asians, so he's screwed. (This actually happened to my friend, got rejected from MIT because he looked like every other Asian guy in the applicant pool). Say MIT can only take 20% Asians this year. Once they hit 20%, they're stopping.
Example II: Black guy, 4.0 GPA, 2000 SAT. He'll get into any private university he wants. Why? Because he's in the top percentile of African-American students in the USA. No matter how limited the space is in a college, affirmative action guarantees that he'll get in.
The UC system stopped affirmative action, and now look: Irvine is 60% Asian, Davis is 50% Asian, Berkeley is 45% Asian.

Looks like I'll be meeting a lot of Asians in Davis. And thanks for explaining that affirmative action. The fact it's applied to the applicant pool rather than looking at the campus diversity after the application decisions come in explains a lot. (I thought that affirmative action applied to how say Stanford wants a 20% Asian student body rather than choosing 20% of the Asians from the applicant pool).

That's what I meant, sorry.
They want an x% student body of x race.

Mephisto Phallus wrote:

Blahblah677 wrote:

Looks like I'll be meeting a lot of Asians in Davis. And thanks for explaining that affirmative action. The fact it's applied to the applicant pool rather than looking at the campus diversity after the application decisions come in explains a lot. (I thought that affirmative action applied to how say Stanford wants a 20% Asian student body rather than choosing 20% of the Asians from the applicant pool).

That's what I meant, sorry.
They want an x% student body of x race.

Oh right...that would make it even more restrictive than pulling 20% of the total applicants. Say...do the Ivies do affirmative action or is it just Stanford? You mentioned UCs not doing that anymore. Sad to say but I didn't research that when I was doing my college applications.

Pretty much all private universities do it.
Funny thing is, the only UC I got into was Davis (even Irvine didn't want me :<)
and the only private I got into was NYU (which is pretty heavy on affirmative action, and I'm Asian)
which was kinda odd... (I ended up 2 for 9 for colleges, got my last choice and my second choice lolwat)

I had an okay-ish SAT score, and a terrible GPA. Didn't look too hot to public schools.
I also broke my school's foreign language program by going too quickly through it. I guess NYU liked that and took me :3

Also, one thing I learned when I went to orientation: do. not. underestimate. percentages.
NYU is statistically only 20% asian, but the orientation was a yerrow-fest.

I had an Okish SAT score compared to my friends (most of whom where more or less 2200), had a 4.0 unweighted for 4 years. Thing that broke me for privates were my extracurriculars...or lack of any. How'd you go through your school's foreign language program too fast? Skip classes? That reminds me, I have an orientation at Davis soon, and I know how big the school is, but it's just an orientation, so do you think I'll need a bike there? :O