What is the SAT score enough for Cornell and Dartmouth!!

[THAIDUYBINH]

I want to apply for Cornell and Dartmouth and don't know "what is the good SAT score to get high scholarship !!" ( I am an international student)
The same question for school in top 20 and 30 in the US news ranking!!

[Erin]

Well, that's kind of like asking how tall you need to be to play basketball. Your SAT score is just one of many factors. And of course, the higher, the better.

That said, you should probably try to get over 500 on the verbal sections and 700 on the math. But again, there are many, many other factors that will contribute.

[THAIDUYBINH]

Now I may have 780 in Math and 590 in Verbal ( which can be increased to 630-670) but I wonder that it is enough for me to be accepted because I think to be accepted by the Ivy , I should be outstanding and the SAT score as you said is not good enough ( even the EC and essay are good )!!May be 2250 in total is enough ????

[Erin]

Well, that should get your application read. Is this your official score? If so, it sounds like you're in pretty good shape.

If you have weaknesses in other parts of your application, you might want to focus on those instead of on raising your SAT score.

[THAIDUYBINH]

It is not my official score but it is my average score in practice tests in the Official Guide ( Collegeboard) !!!I did the tests and my teacher scored for me. I have another question ! The conversion table in the book "Official Study Guide" is quite different from the one in the latest SAT in June ! Is the difference is too much because my brother took the SAT in June and he just had 710 in Math and he blamed for the conversion table ?? That also made me a little bit worried because my score in official may be lower than in the practice test!

[walt526]

Well the confidence intervals are relatively wide for just one test, so your brother's 710M may have just been poor luck. The conversion table is simply used to scale the score--if the raw score suggested a higher scaled score according to the conversion table, then that just indicates that he took a relatively easier test and so the scaled score reflects that easier test. It's impossible to predict how future conversions will behave (it's adjusted statistically based on actual performance).

[Boyan]

If you don't need a scholarship for Cornell - about 2100 will be enough
If you do - 2200 for Cornell and 2250+ for Dartmouth but the ECs and the essays are also very important for the application as a whole. Dartmoth is need-blind so officially it doesn't matter whether you could pay or not.
About the June scale for the SAT - I got only 1 wrong question on M and got 770 and 14 wrong questions on critical reasoning - 630. It was harsh at all for the M because as you could see:
-1 770
-2 740
-3 710
Good luck. I like these schools too.