Our students frequently ask us what they need to get on these standardized exams in order to get into the college of their dreams. The answer to this question inherently relies on the selectiveness of colleges on their list. If you want to get into Harvard, Princeton, Yale, MIT, Stanford etc. the average applicant is looking at a 34+ (or mid 1500s). On the other hand, if your dream school is University of Colorado Boulder, you’d only need around a 27 (or 1250) to be on target.
Of course, these scores themselves only tell a small part of the story for schools that are exceptionally selective. There are plenty of 4.0 unweighted GPA (4.5+ weighted) and 36 on the ACT and/or 1600 on the SAT applicants each year that get sweeping rejections from every Ivy league they apply to + University of Chicago, Caltech, MIT, Stanford. So, what gives? Does that mean you don’t need those scores to get in? The answer to that question is an unequivocal no for most applicants. You need those scores to get your foot into the door, but they certainly will not garner you an acceptance offer on their own. Doing poorly on the ACT will almost always guarantee a rejection from a top university, but doing well still does not guarantee an acceptance.
So, what makes up a successful applicant then? Top scores and a great story with experiences to back that up. But first things first, the SAT/ACT. Getting a competitive score for a top school may sound extremely intimidating, but with the right work ethic, attitude, and resources, there is a lot of room for improvement for everybody. For instance, the Director of Course and Content Creation for our Strium ACT prep course at 36 Prep, didn’t start anywhere near a 36 before he was finally able to achieve a perfect score on the real deal. However, after a few months of diligent practice and identification of successful strategies of approach to each section and each problem type within each section he was able to raise his score from the mid 20s to a 36. In the 36 Prep ACT Course, RJpresents his strategies to you in a predigested way such that you don’t have to go through that entire process on your own.
Of course, these scores themselves only tell a small part of the story for schools that are exceptionally selective. There are plenty of 4.0 unweighted GPA (4.5+ weighted) and 36 on the ACT and/or 1600 on the SAT applicants each year that get sweeping rejections from every Ivy league they apply to + University of Chicago, Caltech, MIT, Stanford. So, what gives? Does that mean you don’t need those scores to get in? The answer to that question is an unequivocal no for most applicants. You need those scores to get your foot into the door, but they certainly will not garner you an acceptance offer on their own. Doing poorly on the ACT will almost always guarantee a rejection from a top university, but doing well still does not guarantee an acceptance.
So, what makes up a successful applicant then? Top scores and a great story with experiences to back that up. But first things first, the SAT/ACT. Getting a competitive score for a top school may sound extremely intimidating, but with the right work ethic, attitude, and resources, there is a lot of room for improvement for everybody. For instance, the Director of Course and Content Creation for our Strium ACT prep course at 36 Prep, didn’t start anywhere near a 36 before he was finally able to achieve a perfect score on the real deal. However, after a few months of diligent practice and identification of successful strategies of approach to each section and each problem type within each section he was able to raise his score from the mid 20s to a 36. In the 36 Prep ACT Course, RJpresents his strategies to you in a predigested way such that you don’t have to go through that entire process on your own.
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