If you know anything about me, the question in the title of this post might seem a bit odd. Aren’t I, Kristina Semos, a top-ranking test prep and college application essay expert who’s helped hundreds of students massively increase their SAT/ACT scores…so that they can get into their dream colleges? So, wouldn’t it be my automatic response that, yes, you MUST have a flawless score to get into Harvard, MIT, Stanford, Princeton, and the like?
May is a good time to get clear on this very common question. With the school year coming to an end, many rising Seniors plan to use the summer to get started on their college applications/Personal Statements. Or, if you’re a rising Junior, your testing timeline likely entails choosing between the SAT and ACT this summer.
Article Contents
1. Video version of this article
2. What matters most on a college application
3. Will a perfect score get me into every college on my list?
4. Why don’t all applicants with perfect test scores get into an elite school?
a. SAT/ACT score case study: Yale admitted students
5. So…DO I need a 100% on my standardized test?
6. What to focus on instead: the most efficient college apps plan
Watch this article as a video:
Thanks to my YouTube series, you can take in the content of today’s post as a written article, OR as a video above. And don’t forget to subscribe to my channel so you catch all my future videos with valuable test prep tips!
The most important factors on a college application
When you’re applying to college, there are a LOT of criteria that shape your admissions chances at a given school.
But typically, the parts of your application that matter most are:
Grades overall: your GPA across all the classes you’ve taken in high school.
Grades in college prep classes: your GPA in classes that are AP, IB, Honors, etc.
Academic rigor: did you take a challenging course load? An A- in AP Physics will make a bigger impression than an A+ in Basket-weaving.
Standardized test scores (if a college requires them): your scores on the SAT and ACT.
Now, some of you may be applying only to Test Optional colleges, and are choosing NOT to take the SAT or ACT. Which is just fine, so long as you have carefully considered this decision from all angles (it can still be a big advantage to send your scores to a test optional school, depending). If you are certain that you won’t be taking either test, you can skip this post!
If you’re even considering taking a standardized test, the below post is going to explicitly break down whether you need a 1600 (SAT) or 36 (ACT).
Does a 1600 mean you get in to every college?
When a new family first sits down at my desk for our Ace the Test: Game Plan™ consultation, we’ll typically discuss the colleges the student is interested in applying to. Often, this list consists of the same 20-30 colleges or so that most of my high-achieving clients want to attend. When I start crunching the numbers and show them the “median 50 percentile ranges” for these schools so we can create a target SAT or ACT score together, many of these new clients make the knee-jerk assumption that they need a 1600 on the Digital SAT or a 36 on the ACT. After all, HOW WILL ALICIA GET INTO COLUMBIA IF SHE’S NOT LITERALLY PERFECT IN EVERY WAY?! (I’m using Columbia as an example here, but you can swap in the name of any top-ranking school!)
However….a perfect score on the ACT and SAT is really, really uncommon. Only about one-tenth of 1% of ACT test takers get a 36, and about the same number (way less than one percent) receive a perfect score on the SAT.
But doesn’t that also mean that a perfect score sets you apart in a good way? Seems like if you grind yourself into the ground trying to land that double-axel, the admissions committee has practically got to let you in, right?
Not necessarily, I’m afraid. Stanford rejects around 69% of applicants with perfect SAT scores, while Harvard rejects over half. Yikes! If all those “perfect” students got rejected, should you just throw in the towel now?!
No. Don’t worry: you could be a strong candidate, too—without a 1600 or 36! Let’s talk about why.
Why doesn't a perfect score guarantee admission?
The answer here isn’t complicated, actually.
A perfect test score will not make up for an applicant who’s boring, who only cares about scores and grades and has no real life passions.
A perfect score will not compensate for 3.5 years of phoning it in to your high school classes and doing the bare minimum to keep your mom off your back.
A perfect score will not override major personality red flags, like being arrogant, smug, judgmental or self-centered.
A perfect score will not make admissions officers ignore a cliché application that shows no self-awareness, no non-academic interests, no risk-taking, and no initiative.
SAT / ACT score case study: Yale
This might all sound kind of bleak so far. But, we look at some of the statistics in a different light, we can begin to see where they might not necessarily spell doom for your top-school dreams. For the 2021-22 admissions cycle, the median 50% of students actually admitted to Yale scored 1470-1560 on the SAT or between 33-35 on the ACT. That means that half of the students who got in fit into that range, sure. But it also means that 1 in 4 were above it (likely perfect scorers)…and that 1 in 4 were below it. Yes, you heard me right. Below it.
And because I love numbers, please allow me to break down these stats a bit more! That same year, Yale had 50,060 applicants and admitted only 4.57% of those applicants. That means it admitted roughly 2,288 applicants.
Even IF we’re assuming the 25% above the range all had perfect scores, that would give us 572 perfect scorers who were admitted…but that would ALSO mean that Yale admitted 1,716 NON-perfect scorers!
So....DO I need a 100% on my standardized test?
If a perfect score isn’t a guarantee of admission, and there are actually more non-perfect scorers than perfect scorers getting into elite institutions…why are you making yourself miserable trying to hit that 100%? And, more importantly, why are so many other test prep companies encouraging you to do so?
I’ll come out and say it: I’m not going to encourage you to work yourself to the bone just for the sake of “perfection.”
I’m here to tell you that turning a 34 into a 36 is often a waste of your time.
Thing is, grabbing a score close to the top gets you almost as much credit, in the admissions office’s eyes, as nailing a perfect score. It makes sure the door to a prestigious institution isn’t slammed shut before you’ve even put your finger on the doorbell.
But that’s all a standardized test score can really do, as Stanford’s and Harvard’s patterns of rejecting applications with perfect scores show us. A strong score is just another piece of evidence that you’re college-ready…NOT a magic bullet that remedies any other flaws in an application. (Although it can sometimes be a KEY piece of evidence—if your coursework rigor and transcript are not great and therefore don’t provide sufficient proof of your academic readiness themselves.)
But now that the door is ajar because of your strong score, you need to be the type of interesting, passionate, inquisitive student that the college admissions officer knows will contribute to the campus. That means pouring time and energy into your talents! You need to show a great transcript—which takes consistent effort (and time!) throughout the course of your high school career to study, do homework, and prepare for finals and tests. And you also need to portray all of that personality and intellectual curiosity creatively and eloquently in your college application essays (this post can help with that!). Which takes intention, thought, and TIME.
Time that you can’t afford to waste trying to be completely perfect on your SAT or ACT, taking the test four more times just to move north by 20 points.
The most efficient college application plan
Instead, what if your test prep process could be made hyper-efficient—so that you are studying for half the amount of time, but still locking in 90% of your test score potential? So that you score in the top end of your dream school’s median range and then declare your test prep finito…and use the rest of your time to BECOME that tremendously interesting and inquisitive person who’s found their purpose and shows tremendous initiative turning their passions into reality?
If this sounds like the ticket to you, then we might make great partners! Book your Ace the Test: Game Plan™ to see how I can make your junior and senior years saner by dramatically increasing your SAT and ACT scores in the most streamlined, strategic way possible! I also have self-study options available if you’d prefer to approach the Digital SAT or the ACT on your own time with a fully guided digital course.
