So you got your SAT score, now what?

So you just got your SAT score back, now what?

Hi!  My name is Lydia, and I’m the designer of the Cognitive Agency Approach to test prep.  I have helped hundreds of students get the SAT score they deserve over the past 10 years.  Arguably the 2nd most stressful day for an SAT test taker is score release day (the first being the actual test day).

Here are some of the most common questions I hear on score release day.

Q1.  I haven’t gotten my score yet, is that bad?

It could be, but most likely it isn’t. 

I tell my clients that releasing scores is a high priority to College Board, but it’s not their highest priority.  They care more about being fair than releasing a score.  So, if there is a discrepancy or a concern, they will hold back a score release until that concern is addressed.  A concern could simply be that another student in the room may have had a cell phone out and they are running a statistical analysis on that student’s scores to determine the likelihood that they cheated.  There may not have been actual cheating.   When my son took the SAT, this happened to him.  Someone in his classroom had just not put away their phone properly.  There was no evidence the student was using the phone to cheat. 

That being said, they aren’t going to hold back other scores just because they are concerned with the scores in that room.  It certainly feels bad when other students get their score before you get your score, but if you consider the other side, you’d be upset if your score was held up because College Board was investigating an incident in another state.

You can try to reach out to the College Board, but they are most likely not going to be explaining any investigation they are conducting.  This happens often so I wouldn’t necessarily worry unless there is another reason to worry.  If College Board is investigating you, you will likely know.  Even then, unless there was malicious intent, the worst thing that would happen is that you need to take the test again.  That can be very inconvenient, but it’s not going to impact your future necessarily.  

Q2.  I got this score, is that good?

Most parents and students look at the SAT in a very narrow way.  Intelligent minds can disagree on whether the SAT is correct, but College Board views scores as an indication of college readiness.  You can think of college readiness as College Board’s prediction as to freshman grades and graduation rates.    You should have received some information regarding this along with your score.

When Ivy+ schools like Harvard reversed their test optional policy, they cited research that said SAT scores are a good determiner of this college readiness.   While admissions officers rarely share their thinking, it is reasonable to presume that even if their university remains test optional, they have read this research.

So “Good” is a relative consideration.  The benefits of a college degree are difficult to overstate.  College degree holders, on average, have lower unemployment rates, lower incarceration rates, longer life expectancies, higher levels of income, etc.  If your score is not what you wanted it to be, but it does predict that you will graduate from college, that’s good.  It’s more important to get a degree than to attend a “reach” university. 

If your report did not predict college readiness, that is hard to hear.  However, I would rather know this before I spent money on an expensive college.  If you still want a college degree, you can still get one!  The report should give a breakdown on what needs to be addressed.  Hiring a tutor or using Khan Academy to remedy those low scores will not only help the SAT score, but also your life in general!  Junior college and then transferring to a 4-year university is also a viable option.  Not only will that help address the readiness deficiencies, it’s far more economical than immediately attending a 4-year university.

There are absolutely “good students/bad test takers.”  I know many!  My background is not in education.  Before I was an SAT tutor, I was a real estate appraiser.  I worked in corporate America until the pandemic, when the demand for appraisals dropped but the demand for math tutors skyrocketed.  For several years, I did both.  When people found out that I tutored the SAT after work, I heard story after story of very successful people who did not do well on the SAT or didn’t even take the SAT!  I also heard story after story of people with top scores who couldn’t or didn’t complete college.

I am not saying a good SAT is not important, I am just saying it is not a requirement to be successful.

Q3.  Should I submit this score even if the university is “test optional”?

Generally, yes.  The research I mentioned did find that SAT scores correlated with freshman grades and graduation rates.  It ALSO compared students that did submit, even if the scores were relatively low for that school, with students who didn’t submit at all.  They found that students who submitted relatively low scores still had higher graduation rates!

My recommendation is to try to figure out what the score range was BEFORE the school went test optional.  You might need to use the way back machine for this, but most of the time, you can figure this out with just a few Google searches or phone calls.  If your score falls within that range, I would submit.

Remember, the SAT score should be seen as an indication that a student can handle a certain amount of rigor.  A score of 1300 or higher will generally indicate that a student can handle any level of rigor.  I say that because many of my students who end up at Ivy+ schools started with a 1300.  A score of a 1000 will generally indicate a student will get C’s in a typical college class (C’s get degrees!).  Many students who end up with 1000 started with a lower score. 

Part of the reason this is, I believe, is that test prep itself reinforces the things students need to know to succeed in college.  I can’t tell you how many times a student of mine had a realization in test prep they missed in high school.  Tutoring is a wonderful way to address the exact needs a student has.  Classrooms, by their very nature, cannot do this as they always teach to the average. 

Universities are businesses.  Besides tuition, they make money from their alumni, sports programs, or wealthy benefactors.  If you are not a star athlete or have wealthy parents, the benefit you bring to the school is as a future alumni.  If you can demonstrate a score that indicates a likely graduation, why wouldn’t you submit that? 

Counterintuitively, a relatively lower SAT score can actually be MORE beneficial to a test optional college.

If the school says they will not hold your decision to submit your SAT scores against you, that means that a student with a 4.0 GPA and a 1300 SAT score is ranked the same as a 4.0 GPA and a 1500 SAT score.  That is actually a bigger benefit, therefore, for the 1300 scorer than the 1500 scorer!

If the school is test optional but doesn’t promise not to hold your decision to submit your score or not against you, they very well may assume the worst.  This means they are likely going to assume that there was a low SAT score. 

Let me share a quick anecdote.  This is true, even though I am not going to name names.  A very high priced tutor whose clientele included celebrities and the wealthy told me that schools would often call him and tell him to NOT submit SAT scores so they could get the rich or famous student in.  However, I have never heard this.  My clients have never had this happen to them.  While I help a lot of athletes raise their SAT scores, I don’t have celebrity clients.  Coincidence?  I don’t think so.

The same research that Harvard used to justify returning to requiring the SAT or ACT also said that students who benefited the most from test optional policies were athletes and the wealthy. 

In short, if you don’t submit an SAT score and you’re not an athlete/have rich parents, you should include a post graduate plan in your essay.  For example, the essay could include something like “I have always been fascinated by how things work and big ideas.  When I spent time interning at the DOT, I realized how important civil engineering is to a functioning society.”

Q4. I need a higher score than I received.  How do I raise it?

This isn’t an easy question to answer because each situation is individual.  I do a free assessment to help determine this.  Of course, I am a tutor and want students to enroll with me, but in all honesty, the Cognitive Agency Approach isn’t for everyone.  That being said, I still want all students to reach their goals which is why I still do free assessments.  Go ahead and pick a time where both you and your parent(s) can attend and let’s talk! 

Essentially there are 3 reasons you miss questions.  In order to figure out how to improve, you have to know why you are missing.

1.  You are missing “Academic Content.”
2.  You made a mistake.
3.  The question was counterintuitive and you lacked insight.

Academic Content is the stuff you learn in school.  This is usually the reason students miss up to 1100.  You need to learn or remember some things.  This includes formulas, grammar rules, and vocabulary words.  Most tutoring programs help with this and is the main benefit of Khan Academy.  You should focus on things you don’t know, which is why you need to know why you are missing!

We all make mistakes.  As you practice the SAT and review your missed questions, you will naturally make fewer mistakes as you go.  Make sure you employ best practices when you need to.  For example, when I make a mistake it’s usually because I flipped a negative/positive sign.  So, if I see that I am working with absolute values, subtracting a polynomial in a bracket, or taking a negative number to a higher power, I show my work.  Nobody needs to explain to me why subtracting a negative is the same as addition; I know the academic content!  That being said, I rarely make mistakes in trigonometry, so I will do as much of it in my head as I can.  It is a timed test after all.  You may be different, which is why it’s important to know why you are missing!

Many of the questions are counterintuitive.  A question may ask you what a feminist has in common with someone who thinks women should stay home with children.  You may want to answer “nothing,” but the right answer will be “they both believe women have a role in society.”  Or you might have a system of linear equations that has no solution, and you might want to solve it because that’s what you usually do with a system of equations.  However, you need the insight to realize lines that have no solution are parallel and so you just need to find the slope.  Again, there are no academics you lacked, you just didn’t have insight.  In order to develop insight and not fall victim to counterintuitive questions, you need to know why the wrong answer is wrong more than you need to know why the right answer is right.  So, say it again with me, you need to know why you are missing!

So, the number one thing to do is know why you’re missing.  To learn more of what you SHOULDN’T do , check out my article Top 5 mistakes students make when preparing for the SAT (and what to do instead).