<p>I have taken the sat I 3 times now, but I think i can still improve alittle approx 40 pts in the writing section which will allow me to reach that 2200. How will the top 30 privates/public schools look at a person who took the Sat I more than 3 times? I understand that there is technically no discriminating factor. However, all admission officers are "people" so do they personally hold bias against people who take it more than 3 times? I already posted this b4 but no one really answered...so yea =( can you guys give me some input=(
Also if we sign up for a sat 1 test, if we choose not to take it do we just not show up and the test is automatically cancelled? or do we have to complete some paper work?
-thanks!</p>
<p>also do colleges give less weight on the writing section for the sat?</p>
<p>for top 30 schools, DO NOT take the SAT I more than three times</p>
<p>i don't even understand people that take it three times; why don't you just take some practice tests until you can get to that 2200 or whatever and THEN sign up for the real SAT? then if you get nervous take it again and you should get that 2200</p>
<p>i'd assume the test is automatically cancelled if you don't go...</p>
<p>check with individual colleges as to whether they are considering the writing section...</p>
<p>thank you aznoverachiever =D
=( but bump...more input from other people also =D thanks!</p>
<p>don't take it again. 40 pts isn't worth it.</p>
<p>What you don't send them, they don't know. I think you don't have to send all 3 SATs unless you have good section scores on each.</p>
<p>Let me correct some of the statements in this thread. College Board sends out score reports with ALL of a test-taker's scores from ninth grade or later. (Some young people who take the SAT in eighth grade or below for Talent Search programs may request to keep those scores on their record of scores too, but scores from below ninth grade are removed from the permanent record of scores by default, unless the family requests otherwise.) So the colleges you apply to will see ALL of your SAT scores from times when you took the real SAT at a real testing center in ninth grade or higher grades. </p>
<p>What will colleges do with that information? There are two patterns of how colleges look at repeat scores. One pattern is to look at ALL scores and choose the highest scores the student received ON EACH SECTION to consider as the student's scores for admission evaluation. Another pattern is to find the highest single-sitting score for the student and to consider that as the student's score for admission evaluation. The first pattern, sometimes called "superscoring," is usually used by elite private universities. The second pattern, single-sitting consideration, is sometimes used by state universities. Any college applies the same rule, whatever the rule is, to all of its applicants. </p>
<p>I was just at the Exploring College Options consortium (Duke, Georgetown, Harvard, Penn, and Stanford) meeting last week in Bloomington, Minnesota. I attended the meeting specifically to ask about this issue, which comes up over and over again on various forums on College Confidential, and in lots of other online discussion groups I participate in. Before the meeting on 10 May 2007, I emailed ahead to the admission offices of Duke, Harvard, Penn, and Stanford with quotations from earlier CC threads, all publicly viewable threads indexed by Google, in which students asked about the issue of retaking the SAT I. I also included short "fair-use" quotations from some replies (of varying points of view) that those student questions elicited.</p>
<p>After slide shows about each college, the audience of more than 200 students (and many parents) was allowed to ask general questions. I looked around to make sure I wouldn't cut off a student, and then stood up to ask my question. I said that I have seen many online discussions in which a student has taken the SAT I once, and is concerned about taking it again. I asked if that could have a bad effect on how the college would view the student's first score, to report more than one score. The Georgetown admission representative (the only one I didn't write to ahead of time) replied that when there are SAT I retakes after the second time, score increases are not usually seen. But Georgetown counts an applicant's highest score, section by section, and does so even if some of the scores come from the old two-section SAT I rather than the current three-section SAT I.</p>
<p>The Harvard representative, admission officer Julia Topalian, looked me right in the eye as she said, "Take it ten times if you want to; it's not going to hurt you." She continued by saying that test scores are but one element in evaluating applicants for admission, and "how you use your time is important." Harvard will look at what an applicant's extracurricular activities (ECs) are, and taking admission tests is not considered an EC. But specific to the issue of retaking the test, "You can take it as many times as you like." </p>
<p>I thought that was a good response to the groundless worries so many students have about one or two retakes before the final deadline for submitting SAT I scores for an admission application. (By the way, the Harvard representative said in a later discussion specific to questions about Harvard that the first admission test [SAT I or ACT with writing] in the year 2008 will still be timely for class of 2008 applicants in Harvard's new one-deadline application cycle. She also said it is NEVER necessary to rush scores--rushed scores and regular service scores arrive at Harvard at exactly the same time.) Don't worry--don't worry at all--if you think there is a good reason for you to retake the SAT I. Do remember that Harvard (and other fine colleges) every year pass over applicants with peak test scores to admit students with lower scores who have other desirable characteristics. There is no special admission wallop to taking the SAT I only once, and no guarantee of admission even with a perfect score. The 2006-2007 Official Register of Harvard University, a publication of the admission office, says, "You may take tests more than once; we consider only your highest scores."</p>
<p>All comparable colleges have similar policies, so this isn't an issue to worry about. I hope this helps the applican ts in high school classes of 2008, 2009, and subsequent classes worry less and enjoy their activities more. </p>
<p>Good luck in your applications.</p>
<p>Good job, tokenadult!</p>
<p>"for top 30 schools, DO NOT take the SAT I more than three times"</p>
<p>I think three times is already too many.</p>
<p>I haven't found a compelling reason to take the SAT I lots of times, other than raising the score after the first time, but at any rate the colleges don't set policies to harm the applicants who test more than once. One can practice at home, without paying the testing fee, or do what I did when I was a kid and not practice at all (but just read and enjoy thinking about math problems and write), but whatever one does to prepare or not to prepare, the colleges don't care: they just look at your best scores.</p>
<p>Great advice tokenadult! But, in rare cases, how many times you take the SAT <em>may</em> have a slight impact; this is an anecdotal conjecture. I know someone who applied to several multiple degree (BS/BA/MD) programs. During the interview portion (the second round), some of the interviewers have open files. Two interviewers noted something along the lines of: "Wow. You only took the SAT once and scored so well. I've seen so many applicants take the test multiple times, and their scores are still much lower." Perhaps, in that specific situation, taking the SAT many, many times would appear worse. Then again, so would a low score :)</p>
<p>one time & scored a perfect score</p>
<p>
[quote]
this is an anecdotal conjecture
[/quote]
</p>
<p>I sent along anecdotal conjectures like that to the admission officers to whom I emailed questions. That doesn't end up mattering in today's undergraduate admission process. That may, in large part, be because admission officers are aware that a sole submitted score is NOT proof that an applicant tested only once.</p>
<p>Well, like I mentioned, that anecdote was from a very specific situation: combined BS/MD programs. Those programs are very different from traditional undergraduate applications, since the <em>medical school</em>, not the undergraduate, controls admissions. Therefore, BS/MD programs may view SAT retakes differently, and the blanket "it doesn't matter how many times you take the SAT" rule might not apply in all situations.</p>
<p>How recent is the anecdote? Where did the student matriculate?</p>
<p><a href="tokenadult:">quote</a>I sent along anecdotal conjectures like that to the admission officers to whom I emailed questions. That doesn't end up mattering in today's undergraduate admission process.
[/quote]
</p>
<p>You mailed individual admissions officers? It was known to you in advance who they would be and what their individual emails were? The individuals wrote back?</p>
<p>You posted prior to the session that Harvard admissions sent you a computer-generated reply. This does not inspire confidence that anybody read, much less made an attempt to answer, your list of questions. Is there any indication that anybody on the admissions panel had any clue who you were from the crowd of 200, or had read your email, or was providing an answer relative to the contents of that email (which the other 199 audience members, who were also the target of the answer, had not seen)? What was in the email, by the way --- if they did answer based on your email, how can we know whether they were supporting the "anecdotal conjectures" or supporting your position, without seeing the questions?</p>
<p>One last question: how often will the queries in the preceding paragraph (some are repeats from before) have to be posted in order to get a clear answer?</p>
<p>I received an individual reply from the Duke admission office in advance of the meeting, and spoke one-on-one with the Stanford admission officer (to whom I had written ahead) before the general meeting began. As explained, at the general meeting in Minnesota I asked my general question, making clear that I was the guy who had sent the emails ahead. I received a spoken reply from the Georgetown admission officer (who may have been responding "cold" or may have not, depending on whether or not the various admission officers discussed what questions were likely to come up on their last night of touring together) in front of an audience of hundreds at the meeting. Admission officer Julia Topalian of Harvard seemed completely ready for the question. She responded to issues that were broader than the question I asked, with my nods of appreciation for her taking the broader view. </p>
<p>I have taken care to check this because the statements made in CC threads--most often without citation to any source currently employed at an admission office--are at variance with what I have heard over the last three years at similar college information meetings and have read on college Web sites. So I gathered a lot of quotations from various CC threads, using the forum search function, and from various online discussion groups I am on, and laid out all the various statements for the admission officers. For particular colleges, I was able to find statements about the college's policies (as people knew them or speculated about them) in college-specific forums. </p>
<p>I was formerly of the opinion expressed by various posters that a sole-sitting high SAT I score would be more impressive and have more admission impact than two or three SAT I scores submitted as part of the same application. That's the way I took the SAT I in my day--exactly once. That's why I was surprised, over the past three years, to hear college admission officers in public meetings taking the different view that retakes didn't matter as much as I once thought they did. It's too bad I didn't pick up earlier in the year the 2006-2007 Official Register of Harvard University, which says, "You may take tests more than once; we consider only your highest scores." I think that makes the matter clear enough. Searching threads on CC shows that a lot of parents who are more or less in my generation used to think it was odd to take the SAT I more than once, but retakes are becoming much more usual, and the response of admission offices at the highly selective elite colleges is to set a policy of section-by-section consideration of an applicant's highest scores. I note again in this thread that the nationwide phenomenon of young test-takers taking the SAT I for Talent Search programs </p>
<p><a href="http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/showthread.php?t=40823%5B/url%5D">http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/showthread.php?t=40823</a> </p>
<p><a href="http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/showthread.php?t=78732%5B/url%5D">http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/showthread.php?t=78732</a> </p>
<p>means that college admission officers can no longer assume that a sole submitted score shows that a test-taker has taken the test just once. Scores of students in eighth grade and below are removed from the record of scores by default, and students who take the SAT I at that age number in the hundreds of thousands. </p>
<p>I note with interest that other attendees of the Exploring College Options program this spring around the country who were also curious about the test retake issue no longer seem to worry about it. This is a frequently asked question; it could have been asked and answered at any of the meetings this spring. </p>
<p><a href="http://exploringcollegeoptions.org/%5B/url%5D">http://exploringcollegeoptions.org/</a></p>
<p>Uh...I don't know for sure what those Adcoms said to you, but my gc's and pretty much everyone else I have met who is knowledgeable on the subject has said take the SAT no more than 3 times.</p>
<p>I think Julia Topalian of the Harvard admission office said, "Take it ten times if you want to; it's not going to hurt you" just to be sure that everyone listening got the point that it's not the number of times to take the SAT I as such that's an issue, but rather what else you do with your time. Particularly in the case of the few colleges that admit students with the highest interquartile range of SAT I scores, what is especially important for distinguishing applicants is what their extracurricular activities are. Overall, the context surrounding the number of times the SAT is taken is much more important than the number of times itself. </p>
<p>After edit: are most of the current high school students posting in this thread juniors (that is, members of high school class of 2008)? There is only a little more spring admissions travel going on this school year, but in the fall there will plenty of meetings all over the country at which to ask about this issue directly with admission officers from the colleges you are most interested in. And this time of year (after most matriculation decisions have been made) is a pretty good time to contact admission offices with questions.</p>