<p>I have two test dates that encompass my highest test score over all three sections. I have another test that does not have any "highest" subsection at all. Essentially a worthless SAT. I know I can do better on my reading due to my performance on practice tests, but am afraid to take it a forth time because i don't think it looks good to a college for a student to take the sat four times. If one of the colleges i'm applying to requires all sat's what do i do? Do I opt out and send the two highest right now, hide the "worthless" one, and wait for the forth. Do i not take the forth? Do I just send the best two? Why does penn require you NOT to participate in score choice if they take the highest anyway? Why send all when you can just send the highest ones anyway? Why do they require that they see my "worthless" sat score? I don't understand.</p>
<p>depends</p>
<p>what are your scores</p>
<p>Exactly my thoughts. They apparently DO somehow take into consideration ur other scores even tho they say they only take the highest from each section. Otherwise, they would take SC</p>
<p>they probably don’t like you taking it more than twice</p>
<p>but once is ideal</p>
<p>everybody i know who got in has taken it once</p>
<p>My scores are m-760 cr-630 wr-640
m-800 cr-640 wr-670
m-750 cr-630 wr-690
Like I said, despite what the tests show, I KNOW i have the potential to do better. But penn requires all. Do I still opt out and send the ones I want or what?</p>
<p>Don’t take it again. just send in all your scores since most schools superscore. A fourth time will look excessive</p>
<p>People tend not to improve after 2 (MAYBE 3) times. So taking it again looks a little desperate. </p>
<p>I’m confused. I haven’t looked this up but you’re saying Penn requires all scores? If so…how do you think you can “opt out” and send only 2 of the current 3 scores?</p>
<p>As to why a college wants you to send all scores, but considers only the highest…sometimes, as you can tell, it’s very difficult for us to know which IS the highest. Some SuperScore. Those that don’t, know their internal system enough to know which is best. My D has a 2210 SAT, with 780/750 SAT IIs. But then a glaring 620. So…do those 780/750s offset that, or not? One of her schools allows either SAT I plus 3 SAT IIs…OR just the ACT alone. Her ACT is top 99 percentile at a 34. But I still advised her to SEND ALL…as this school REQUESTS. Let them sort it. I’m sure, regardless of their denials, they do have some “formulas” they use, at least in the first sorting of applications. And we can’t know what those are. Don’t stress (easy for me to say, eh?). Just send it, let them do their job, and try to think about something else (for the next 5 months!!! Yikes!). Good luckk.</p>
<p>PENN WILL NOT HONOR SCORE CHOICE.</p>
<p>You just try to send in only ur best score…
see what happens</p>
<p>How do you know you can do better? Where is your empirical evidence?</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>I think you’ve answered your own question. They want to see how you performed based on your intellectual abilities, not on your ability to learn how to take the SAT. I see no point in taking the SAT for a 4th time. The only score that has shown appreciable improvement is the writing; your CRs and Maths have been essentially static.</p>
<p>ive taken a multiple practice tests and gotten a 670+ on reading everytime. Responding to the post earlier, you can uncheck one of your SATs and a dialogue box basically says “you know what you’re doing here right? this school wants you to send all of them, but if you really don’t want to, you don’t have to”</p>
<p>You have to send all your scores no matter what. Even that horrendous score that you’d like to erase from existence (if it applies to you)</p>
<p>You have to analyze your choices more carefully.</p>
<p>Choice 1: Send all existing scores to Penn, or only some? CB will let you send only some of your scores to Penn, but its report will indicate that you have used score choice. So you will not have complied with Penn’s requirements. In all likelihood, they will notify you that your application is incomplete; possibly they will just not consider the application, or reject you for that sole reason. There are two more favorable outcomes possible – (a) They go ahead and consider the application anyway, noting that you were too stupid or obtuse to follow instructions, or (b) they don’t notice that you have not complied with their rules, in which case you have successfully committed fraud, congratulations.</p>
<p>None of those is a good outcome.</p>
<p>On the other hand, your three tests are basically completely consistent. Those ARE your scores; no one is going to look at them and discount anything because it looks like you got lucky. I have no idea why you are reluctant to comply with the policy (or why, if you were going to not comply, you wouldn’t just send in the one with the 800M – do you think anyone gives a rat’s tush about 20 points on the writing portion, which half the colleges ignore anyway?).</p>
<p>Choice 2: Re-take a fourth time? Why? To bring your CR up 30 points? 30 points on CR is not going to make or break your application. You have done well enough to pass the smell test already, and 30 points is not going to get you into “impressive” territory. Assuming Penn wants to see all the scores for a reason (and that they eventually see all your scores), they will either (a) discount your highest CR (if it is a lot higher than 640) because you got consistent results the first three times, or (b) think you are mentally unbalanced for re-taking the test another time after getting in the same range on the first three. How bad will that discount be? Who knows? I don’t. But I don’t think you have a lot to gain. And, remember, you can go down in math and writing, casting doubt on your better scores there.</p>
<p>If you need to take it again, take it again. But wait until you see the scores before you send them to anybody, and don’t bother if you don’t go up by at least 80-100 points in CR and WR combined, mostly CR. If you have sent a complete report now, you can decide later whether to send the new scores. If you haven’t sent a complete report now, then forget about sending the new scores, because if you don’t send a complete report then it will just rub up the issue again.</p>
<p>does the score choice apply to sat 2s?</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>What is this based on? I thought it had been established that CB does NOT indicate if score choice was used or not.
The risk of having score choice being discovered would be scores on a transcript or if self-disclosed (interview etc.). I would be very interested in a link to where it says that CB is notifying colleges of score choice.</p>
<p>Try the ACT with writing. If you do comparably you can just submit that in lieu of SAT and subject tests, and not submit any of the SATs and still be in compliance with Penn’s stance on score choice.</p>
<p>@ JHS:
CB does NOT indicate if you have used score choice. You can only get caught if your transcript contains all of your scores.</p>
<p>That is what I thought as well. But i have decided that it would probably be a bit unethical to do so. But it ****es me off that they lie to you about how they use your scores. It makes no sense to require that you send them all if they use your top scores anyway. Their dishonesty annoys me a bit.</p>
<p>I apologize for the misinformation. Based on the way some stuff was worded, and on the colleges’ clear desire for the information, I assumed that CB indicated whether a report contained all scores or not. But if one digs it IS clear from their materials (and the reports) that the reports do NOT indicate whether scores have been excluded, and CB essentially tells colleges to assume that all reports they receive are incomplete.</p>
<p>(If I were the colleges, I would be hopping, hopping mad about this, except I guess they opened the door by accepting this reporting from ACT.)</p>
<p>kuleyb – I don’t think there’s any dishonesty at all. First, you have to understand WHY all these colleges superscore. They superscore because (a) it lets them use the higher numbers on their Common Data Sets and reports to USNWR, and that makes them look good, and (b) as a matter of fairness, they have to have some policy, and that one is neutral and seems applicant-friendly. I don’t think many ever said that they don’t take into consideration whether you have taken the test five times or just once or twice.</p>
<p>kuleyb, I don’t know what you are smoking because in no way, shape, or form is Penn being dishonest by requiring all scores. As JHS stated right above me, the college needs all your scores FOR YOUR BENEFIT. Penn needs them all so it can mix and match your CR, M, and W scores to create a superscore with the highest possible combination. If you only supply one test, they cannot superscore. This is why they use your scores. </p>
<p>Others on this forum who say taking the SAT many times hurts your chances has never been in the admissions office. None of us known for sure what Penn thinks of multiple tests. Maybe Penn really DOESN’T consider the number of retakes. In effect, you’re being so “****ed” off by Penn has no basis since no one on this forum knows for sure. Just be glad they aren’t as strict about the number of SAT retakes as some other schools, which explicitly state they frown upon multiple retakes.</p>
<p>If you should be *<strong><em>ed at anyone, be *</em></strong>ed at yourself for being so impatient and retaking the SAT so many times instead of waiting, practicing, and assuring yourself that you could score substantially better before taking it.</p>
<p>edit: I sound alittle angry in my post, but I’m really not. Just a Thursday…</p>
<p>In reply, I am ****ed at myself. also set point, i think im smart enough to know which scores are my highest, and in hoping for the best chances of admission that i would send those scores to benefit me. I don’t understand what you’re trying to say by that. JHS nailed the situation down by pinpointing the unethical aspect of the issue and the fact that retaking it according to my practice tests would only raise them ideally by 100 points, only 40 of which would really matter (CR). Set point, please read all posts before commenting, it can be annoying to have to explain things. And speculating “maybe penn really DOESN’T…” doesn’t really add any substance to the conversation.</p>