Midrange Scores

I want to let you know about a recent situation with a senior in the hopes that this doesn’t happen to any juniors or younger. I received a text last Saturday from a mom the morning after UCF decisions came out. The mom was hoping I could tutor her senior over the next three weeks in the hopes of her SAT score improving on the December 7 test. The daughter was heartbroken that she was deferred from UCF. The school is going to re-evaluate her application after the upcoming SAT. The girl applied with a 1080. She has a weighted GPA of 4.5 and unweighted GPA of 3.8 but isn’t great at standardized tests and has a decent degree of anxiety surrounding them. If I had to describe my “typical” test prep student, it would be exactly this profile.

Here’s what I’m hoping people don’t repeat. You can look up the midrange SAT score on the common data set. (I know a lot of you found it interesting when I wrote about the common data set before.) On item C9, you can see that the bottom 25% score is 1200 and the top 75% score is 1340. UCF ranks standardized test scores as “very important.” It is not surprising that a student with this profile would be deferred from UCF. I just wish she would have known earlier that her number one school is looking for at least a 1200. These numbers aren’t in stone, and obviously, 25% of their admitted students were below a 1200. I wish the student had more time for test prep to give her a greater chance of earning at least a 1200. I met the girl today and have no doubt that she’s capable of earning a 1200. Especially for a student who has extra time accommodations due to anxiety, pushing it to the last possible test and giving herself only three weeks to prep (one of which is a holiday week) probably wasn’t the greatest strategy in retrospect. There is a very good chance she would have been admitted to UCF last Friday if she had earned at least a 1200 before she applied.

If your teen is looking to attend a public school in Florida or another university that requires scores (or one where a high percentage of applicants submit scores), they should look at the midrange scores. If the student is not too close to those scores, they should start test prep sooner rather than later. No school will know how many times a student has taken the test; the student will choose which scores to report. The average number of times nationally to take the SAT or ACT is three. Typically the earliest students start doing test prep is at the beginning of junior year, although I had one sophomore last year, and I have one sophomore this year. Typically the last test seniors can take and still submit in time is the November one of senior year, although some schools will accept the December test. Those who know me well will not be surprised to hear me say that if I was the high school student, I’d aim to be happy with my SAT or ACT score by August of senior year so I’d have everything set for my applications and know what schools I’d be applying test optional to and which schools are targets based on my score.