These are the type of queries I receive almost every day. So in this article, I am about to answer this query for once and all.
Short Answer: There is no way I (or anyone) can answer this question in the way you’re looking for i.e. a definite score target!
Long Answer: One thing that you need to understand is, unlike medical and engineering universities (in Pakistan), about which you do know the merits of previous years and the criteria of admission (for example, 10% matric, 40% FSc, 50% MCAT/ECAT), you cannot figure out the admission criteria of other universities that accept SAT, like LUMS.
LUMS does not make its admission criteria public and it changes internally from year to year. There is no way to figure out what exact percentage weight is given to SAT or Matric/O´Level for admission process. I’ve seen two equally good students (same matric and FSc marks) but one had a lower score than the other. They both applied in two different years. And guess what? The student with lower SAT score was offered admission and the next year the student (with relatively higher SAT score) was rejected. The reason might be increased competition in the following year and/or change in admission criteria. We can´t say for sure!
Now that we do not know the criteria and we do not have the past trends as well, there is no definite answer to your question. People might give you answers like the ones “you need 1200 or 1300” but let me clear this bluntly, do not let your curiosity die by such answers! This might make you frustrated! But wait, and read further. I shall take your frustration away.
Know one thing, you don’t need an answer to this question. Let me explain why? Imagine for a second I’ve given you the answer that you need a score of 1150 marks on SAT for admission in LUMS. Now what? Are you going to lower down your preparation such that you get 1150 marks only? Can you really do that?
Regardless of what score you need to enter universities like LUMS, you need to study as hard as you can with consistency while targeting for a perfect score of 1600, nothing less than that. Your target must be high enough to make you desperate and fight for it. Only then, you may fall to a reasonable score that might guarantee your admission.
An advice of caution: You might be seeing a senior who got 1300 on SAT and got admission in LUMS and thus you have targeted yourself to get around 1300 too now. Don’t do that, PLEASE! Competition may vary from year to year. The average score of the top applicants might be 1400 in the year you are applying and so a score of 1300 won’t even be worth considering.
Also, you cannot do a calculation like if I study for one 1 month instead of 2 months and do 5 practice tests instead of 20, I’ll get a reasonable score of just 1100 (instead of 1400) which is enough to get into LUMS. You need to study each day for at least 2 months and solve a large number of practice questions to prepare.
So in summary, because we do not know admission criteria, and because competition levels vary, and most importantly because there is no calculated study method for a particular target score, we do not need to know”how much should we score in SAT”. I hope this article quenched your curiosity.
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