<p>Although I was planning on only submitting my ACT (31), I recently realized that I had to take some subject tests for the schools that I'm applying to. However, a couple of months ago, I decided to just take a shot at the SAT I (mainly as a practice test) and did horrendously (1850), only to find out that SAT scores stick and that it's impossible(?) to only submit yuor highest scores. Is there any way to submit solely my ACT and the subject tests, but not the SAT I?</p>
<p>If not, would it even make sense to retake the SAT I (with a lot of studying, certainly), since the colleges would clearly notice my terrible first attempt scores?</p>
<p>I think both your SAT I and II results will be submitted, unfortunately… In my opinion you should retake, colleges will understand that it was your first attempt, and they like to see improvements in your scores anyway.</p>
<p>A friend of mine didn’t send his scores through CollegeBoard, and had his guidence counsler take his SATI scores off his transcript so only his ACT and SATII were on them.</p>
<p>mlevine07, how’d your friend get your guidance counselor to omit the SAT I scores? What kinds of schools did he apply to?</p>
<p>And isn’t it true that most colleges/universities add more weight to your first or lowest SAT scores, because they are technically a better indicator of your future success?</p>
<p>Colleges will expect your official score report to be sent directly to the college. (These days score reports are usually sent electronically.) A College Board score report includes all SAT Reasoning Test scores and all SAT Subject Test scores from ninth grade onwards. Don’t worry about it. Colleges consider your highest scores. Check Harvard’s viewbook for that statement if you don’t believe me.</p>
<p>I really want to believe you, tokenadult, but I hear that a large reason why many students avoid the SAT and take the ACT instead, is that colleges * do * consider your lowest scores, and in fact focus on them. There really wouldn’t be much of a point for admissions officers to see all of your scores if they didn’t consider your lowest ones, right?</p>
<p>Wrong. They look at your highest scores, as Harvard says in its viewbook, because those are the best evidence of how much you made use of your learning opportunities in high school.</p>
<p>No reason to doubt tokenadult – he/she is right, College Board score report includes all SAT Reasoning Test scores and all SAT Subject Test scores from ninth grade onwards. And what they look at is your highest score.</p>
<p>Remember, they see all of your scores not because they want to, but because that’s what College Board decides to send. Usually, there is a clerk going through the files to see how complete they are, and they have a “cover sheet” for the file that will list basic statistics on the student, including the highest test scores. This happens before an admissions officer ever sees your file. (Or nowadays, with electronic applications, I wouldn’t be surprised if there’s a program that calculates the highest scores (if there’s superscoring) and lists them on a sort of “electronic” cover sheet.) An admissions officer would have to dig into the file to see other scores, and they have neither the time nor the desire to do so.</p>
<p>A lot of kids take the ACT instead of the SAT I because 1) many find the ACT to be a more “user friendly” test; 2) it’s shorter; 3) for many schools, if you do well enough on the ACT with writing, you don’t need to submit SAT IIs. That reduces the amount of testing a student must do.</p>
<p>1850 doesn’t give a lot of information though. Especially because it means that your writing could have been an 800 and everything else have been pretty abysmal.</p>
<p>But assuming that its a 620,620,610 or so, if you have good ACT scores I couldn’t imagine colleges caring all that much.</p>
<p>My friend applied to top 40 schools. Not all schools require electronic. I know that when I applied to Hampshire last minute, they didn’t, and I’m pretty sure I never officially sent anything to Clark University or UMass.</p>
<p>I also want to reiterate that many schools will take the ACT with writing in lieu of SAT II scores. If you get a good ACT score and took the writing part it is likely that you won’t have to take any SAT II tests. In that case you can choose to send SAT scores or not depending on how well you did on them.</p>