The SAT, in my opinion, is what gets you through the door in terms of admissions. The rest of your application is the core – something that the admissions office will consider once you meet their grade requirements. As mentioned earlier in one of the chapters, the SAT is really important since the baseline or average SAT Verbal and Math scores for Stanford, and for any other first-tier university for that matter, is in the 700s.
Depending on your chosen career path and intended major, different sections of the SAT will matter the most. So, for example, if you were going into a more technical and math-based major, you should score at least a 700-800 on the Math portion of the exam.
If you were to go into a more humanities-based major, you would definitely have to excel in the Writing and the Verbal version. SAT IIs are also a very important test you throw into the mix. Since I was intent on becoming an Art History major at the time of my application, I chose to take Literature and History SAT IIs.
I took the SAT twice, and emerged with a 2200 out of 2400 as my highest score. I scored a 760 in Verbal, 710 in Writing and 730 in Math. I got a 690 in Literature, and scored within the 700’s for my Math SAT II’s.