Congrats to your DD on a comfortable cushion!
The problem is the lower hard ceiling (1520 vs. 1600) and a lower soft ceiling (easier test so no room for careless errors). I still remember when you can miss a few and still hit perfect scale score on the verbal section of the old SAT. These days, you need to be strong enough in both math and verbal to hit a almost perfect score (for competitive states) but not necessarily the strongest in either one. In the old days, a number of the lopsided kids made it, especially top verbal kids who are good but not great in math. On the higher Selection Index states, there is almost no cushion - unless my kids hit at least 224 or 225(1500 out of 1520), they can't be confident they will qualify. It is possibly for the SI to rise so perhaps even 224 or 225 may not be enough in two years.
