<p>My son got his scores yesterday (1st time taking the SAT), and got 800 on both CR and W, which were up from his PSAT scores. However, his SAT math score was 720, which was down from an 80 on the PSAT. I know that it's possible to go down from PSAT to SAT, but given that he improved on both other sections, and came home highly confident that he had gotten every math question, this seems odd.</p>
<p>He says that he had to erase and move a bunch of answers on the scantron, raising the question of whether there his erasures weren't good enough (he said he tends to press real hard when filling in the bubbles). We're thinking this suggests that getting the test hand graded is a good idea. We're aware that all his MC answers will be checked; not concerned about this.</p>
<p>Beyond that (assuming no change on the hand grade), should we encourage him to take the test again? 2320 is nothing to sneeze at, and presumably won't be the reason he may be rejected from the elite schools he'll apply to. On the other hand, 2400 is 2400, and I think he's pretty confident that he can nail the math section (which is certainly an outlier for him). Of course, taking it again opens him to potentially lower scores on CR and W, but we keep hearing that schools will only consider the highest score across all test dates. Is this really the case? It's hard not to believe that there wouldn't be some questioning about the validity of an 800 if a second test date has a lower score. But what we hear is that if he can pull out an 800 on math in a second testing, even if he gets lower scores on CR and W, he'll be evaluated as a 2400. True?</p>
<p>Thanks!</p>