<p>I belive the Collegeboard (a.k.a. Evil Inc) sends all your scores, no matter what. So if you're only sending you SAT II scores because you're using your ACT, that college will still see your SAT I score(s) since everything is lumped together.</p>
<p>Quoted from Collegeboard.com: "All available scores will be sent, including those from previous test administrations. You cannot send only your latest or highest SAT Reasoning Test scores, or separate scores for critical reading or math or writing, or only SAT Reasoning Test or only SAT Subject Tests scores."</p>
<p>I don't understand why it would? People constantly do poorly on their SAT's, retake them, and they're as good as gold. What's different about the ACT?</p>
<p>I'm just talking about the SAT (well same thing), but doing poorly even once just gives a bad impression. Even for a person who scored like 1550, if that person got a 1100 just a few months before, then wouldn't that be detrimental?</p>
<p>There's no difference and you aren't secrewed. People on this board are just REALLY paranoid. Colleges want to like you and they know that everyone has bad days. They're going to look at your highest scores.</p>
<p>Besides, there could be any number of reasons somebody went from an 1100 to a 1550. Maybe the first day, you had pneumonia. Maybe you had diarrhea and had to keep running back and forth from the bathroom. Maybe you had a nightmare the night before and didn't get any sleep. Maybe you screwed up filling in the bubbles or skipped 3 pages of material accidentally.</p>
<p>Even if nothing happened the first day, improving that much shows you're willing to work hard and try again when at first you don't succeed. In fact, I think you might look even better than someone who had a 1550 and got another 1550.</p>
<p>semiserious is right--low scores can happen for a multitude of reasons, but you cant get a 1550 on pure dumb luck. A discrepancy like that can be caused by one of two possibilities; either 1. the student studied like mad after receiving his low scho, or 2. he just a bad day when he took the 1100 test. Any way you look at it, a 1550 implies a degree of intelligence and a degree of perseverance ( No matter how hard a dumb kid studies, he will never get a 1550)</p>
<p>also, i couldn't help but notice how nobody on this thread has mentioned my relatively low rank. this is of much greater concern to me than my test scores, since im not even in the 1st decile. to repeat, my GPA is considerably better (about top 5/6%) not counting freshman year. will dartmouth take this into consideration?</p>
<p>I thought you were top 10%...? That's FINE, dude, chill out.</p>
<p>As far as I know, Dartmouth counts your freshman year. But it sounds like you're on an upward trend, which is a good thing. Relax. Throw your app in the pool--you've at least got a chance.</p>
<p>I think your EC's are pretty much the only iffy thing about your application. Sure, you have things like Latin Club, but sports teams and work experience would really help you out in this situation. Again, though, it all depends on how you present yourself. Often in interviews you don't get to say nearly all of what you want to about yourself, so pick a great peer and make sure the teacher recommendations will be good.</p>
<p>Work experience absolutely helps you out. While usually it's only listed as something that is "Considered," it's similar to an extracurricular or community service type of thing. In addition to everything else I do to keep up my grades and stay involved, I've accumulated over 500 hours of work experience during the summer/winter/fall seasons in the past year. Especially during the interview you can say "I didn't do a fall sport because I was working so much, but then I dropped off work and continued things the rest of the year." Point is, you stayed as busy as everyone else + another 30 hours per week or work.</p>