<p>... you take a test, do very poorly on it the first time and then retake it? Would the colleges regard it significantly differently than if you took it the first time and got a good score? Do they even take it into account? And when colleges claim that they look at the top 3 scores, do they acutally look at the other ones anyway? I'm debating over cancelling my score, but I don't know if I should really cancel because I think I did well on another test.</p>
<p><em>bump</em>.... ? please help me?</p>
<p>obviously it would look better if you do well on it the first time, but it's definitely to take it another time to get a better score instead of just keeping the original bad score. and if you take more than 3 tests, they would just take your top 3 scores, so if you're planning to take a lot more and do well on them, then you don't have to retake this one you did bad on. the colleges would just know that from the huge improvement that you actually prepared this time, so it's good.</p>
<p>The initial person to look at your app will see all your scores, but three good ones will be enough to get you into the consideration pool. By the time you're there, the people deciding will only be looking at the relevant material (aka your top three subject test scores, etc) and won't see irrelevant things. </p>
<p>This is how I understand it, though it may only work that way at some schools.</p>