Over the past few weeks, we’ve been discussing what the SAT means in terms of your complete college application. One of the questions that comes up when discussing SAT and ACT scores is whether or not they are important depending on your intended major.

For example, what if you want to be a theater, art, music, dance, or film major and you don’t score very well on the SAT? This is the case with one reader who emailed us:

I'm a 3.5 student, I'm the drum major/conductor of the marching band and vice chair of school site council. I'm also in G.S.A. and N.H.S., but my SAT score was horrible: 1280. Do you think I have a chance of getting into the UC that I want, which is UCI, as a film major?

I'm a test prep tutor (it's okay to be jealous). To get my job, I needed to retake the SAT. Taking the test nearly ten years after my first time was an eye-opening experience. And it taught me a key fact about the test that never occurred to me when I was an awkward high school junior: confidence is essential.

You might be surprised to hear that a college graduate would need to retake the SAT in order to get a job. So was I. When I had applied to work at the local tutoring center, I figured my BA in English and a master’s degree in professional writing stamped me as fully qualified. Not quite. Turned out company policy was to only hire tutors who scored above the 95th percentile, and I needed to prove that I made the grade.

I took the SAT on a Saturday, surrounded by high school students taking practice tests. I kind of felt like I was a junior all over again—and I kind of didn't.