<p>I generally interpreted "strongly recommended" as "do it if you want any hope of getting in," but I wondering why it matters if you submit all your SAT scores. Would they consider someone who taken the SAT once and did well differently than someone who didn't do as well the first time and retook it?</p>
<p>My theories are:
1) they superscore (which wouldn't help me at all, bleh)
2) they consider all scores (which wouldn't be great either)
3) they want people to know they look down on score choice</p>
<p>2 & 3. sometimes, if you show an increase, it looks really good. but if you retake a 2300 and get a 2310 for say, a 4th time, you’ll look obnoxious. if you don’t send em all in,they’ll never know so idk really haha</p>
<p>I wonder if someone knows if Caltech recommends the applicant to take all the sat subject tests of science (the 2 of biology, the chemistry one and the physics one). </p>
<p>I’m graduating this week. I don’t know if I’ll do my 2nd year of IB (international baccalaurette) next year or if, instead, i’ll study by myself for the sats.</p>
<p>I actually heard from an admissions officer about this. The impression I got was that they would prefer you don’t use score choice, but they’re unwilling to REQUIRE it and then be forced to reject the people who do.</p>
<p>So even if you did bad the first time, an increase is okay? I’m most worried about my old math score…</p>
<p>@nwoodward: How bad is really bad? Were you an extremely awesome candidate otherwise? @amarkov: Do you have any idea why they prefer you don’t use it?</p>
<p>haha, i was so nervous about this. Only exam I took twice was the Physics SAT II b/c I got a 630 at first (lol, no studying!) then retook it and got a 770. Got deferred EA, hope it wasn’t because of that, haha.</p>