<p>I just called Collegeboard and they pretty much said that there is no indication when you send scores if you used score choice or not........and I've heard that colleges aren't allow to access your test scores without your permission. So how do the colleges that don't accept score choice know if we're using it or not?</p>
<p>that’s what i wonder too. i don’t think we’ll ever know unless we work in an admissions office.</p>
<p>How do the CIA and FBI stop a terrorist attack? If they told us, then someone could find a way around it.</p>
<p>A number of colleges have said they will require applicants to submit all scores. That means likely there will be a place on the application for you to either fill in all scores or verify you have sent all and if you do not do so, that could be grounds for withdrawing an admission for misrepresentation on your application if they do find out later. </p>
<p>Otherwise, they will likely not learn of your use of score choice except that many high schools put all your scores on the official high school transcript so you need to check what yours does.</p>
<p>it’s my understanding that they get the dates for the scores. so if they get math and writing from, say, the april 2009 exam but then the crit reading from the june 2009, they know you used score choice.</p>
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<p>^ Score choice doesn’t work that way. If you took the April 2009 SAT Reasoning Test and the June SAT Reasoning Test, you have several choices: you can report both the April and June scores for the full tests, or only the April score (full test), or only the June score (full test), or neither. You can’t pick and choose and recombine subscores from different sittings; it’s the entire sitting, or nothing… For SAT Subject Tests, however, you can choose which individual tests to report from a single sitting.</p>
<p>There are at least a couple of ways schools that ask you to provide all test scores could discover underreporting. First, some high schools report SAT scores on your official transcript. If that doesn’t match up with what you report, Bingo! – you’re disqualified. Second, most colleges buy lists of the names and addresses of students scoring over certain thresholds on certain test dates; that’s how they generate the mailing lists for all those glossy brochures and postcards they send you. If they keep that information in a data base, they’ll have a record of your having tested on certain dates, and if those dates don’t match up with the dates you report, Bingo! – you’re disqualified. </p>
<p>What are your actually chances of getting caught? I don’t know. But it’s not just about being caught. It’s cheating, pure and simple, same as falsifying ECs, or counterfeiting a teacher rec, or hacking the school’s computer system and doctoring your transcript, or having someone else take the exam for you. Don’t go down that path, because once you start, it’s hard to stop. Sooner or later it may catch up with you; but even if you never get caught, that’s no way to live your life. That’s not who you want to be. Don’t even think about it.</p>
<p>For SAT Subject Tests, however, you can choose which individual tests to report from a single sitting…
Q ~
If I took 4 SAT Subject Tests and I only want to submit 2… Will they see my other 2 score ?</p>
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<p>No, the colleges won’t see any Subject Test scores that you elect not to send. Suppose you took Math 2 and Physics in May, and Chem and Lit in June. Now suppose you like your Math 2 and Chem scores, but not your Physics and Lit scores. Score Choice allows you to send only the May Math 2 and June Chem scores, and the colleges will never see the May Physics or the June Lit. (But if it’s a college that requests you to send all scores, I still say you should do so, because not to do so is a form of fraud).</p>
<p>For me, as a parent of a student about to embark on her college application testing, I see this as a “right to privacy” issue, similar to medical records. I seriously question the moral and perhaps even legal right of institutions to demand to see results from all exams taken, especially when it is the student, not the institution, who pays to take the exams.</p>
<p>For me, the question should be: Who owns the scores? College Board? Colleges? Or the student who signs up, pays, and actually takes the exams. If the scores are the private property of the student, then Stanford, Yale and others have no legal right to demand to see them. If the scores were government administered, then that would be a very different scenario.</p>
<p>I wish some enterprising legal Eagle out there would challenge Stanford, Yale and others on this issue. If they feel so strongly about seeing all scores, then they should be negotiating with College Board over the reporting process, not bullying high school kids into willingly submiting potentially damaging scores to them. I am seriously turned off by their stance on this issue.</p>
<p>I see your point, sewhappy, and I understand that you are upset. However, I believe that by requesting a list of all scores, the college also helps the student. Under the new score choice, some students could potentially take the SAT nearly every month. At that point it is not necessarily testing the student’s capcity to handle college work, and it becomes a probability game. Their chances of scoring higher are much greater. At the same time, some students who, for whatever reason, are unable to take the test as frequently, are subsequently penalized. So Stanford, Yale, are actually helping your son/daughter.</p>
<p>sewhappy- students aren’t bullied into supplying scores…only requested if they want to apply to those particular colleges…they can decide to apply elsewhere. </p>
<p>Is it any more offensive to “demand” all scores than to feel “entitled” to game the system with score choice?</p>
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<p>I don’t follow your argument at all. Of course Stanford, Yale and the others have no legal right to “demand” to see test scores. They also don’t have a legal right to “demand” to see your HS transcript. But they ask to see it, and they make it pretty clear they’re not going to admit you unless you send it to them. They’re under no legal obligation to admit you, and they certainly have the right to make admission conditional upon your voluntarily submitting certain private information relevant to their decision. Just as they’re under no legal obligation to provide you institutional financial aid, but they can make the award of such aid conditional upon your voluntary surrender of certain private financial information. </p>
<p>You have a legal privacy right to control access to your HS transcript as well, spelled out in a federal statute; no college can see your transcript unless you specifically authorize the HS to send it. But of course you make that authorization when applying to colleges, because you want to be considered. It’s no different with test scores. </p>
<p>If you feel so strongly about your privacy, then don’t send any scores. You won’t be admitted, but you’ll retain your privacy. But if they ask to see all the scores and you elect to send only some of them (after signing a statement certifying that the information you’re providing is complete and accurate), then you’re attempting to defraud them. They probably have no legal recourse. But they’re certainly within their rights to deny you admission, or to rescind admission once granted, or possibly even expel you or revoke your diploma further on down the road, if they ever find out you obtained admission fraudulently.</p>
<p>I don’t see this as a right to privacy at all. The analogy to medical privacy is incongruous. There is a legitimate policy reason behind a person’s right to demand privacy in regard to their medical records and the like because some people might not seek treatment for medical problems if their doctor would blab to the whole world about a potentially embarrassing condition. I think a potential policy reason behind some schools wanting to see all of the scores is to encourage students to take the tests seriously the first or second time around and not as some kind of game where they take the test four or more times in a continuous effort to boost scores. I think it says something about an applicant when they take a test like the SAT more than three times, and these colleges have a legitimate policy reason for seeing the testing history in its entirety. The “privacy” interest of the student is nil because they are already sending their scores in an effort to demonstrate their abilities. All of the elite schools “superscore” anyhow so they already ignore the low scores. Of course, the College Board makes money every time a student takes one of their tests so they have no problem with people gaming the system with Score Choice.</p>
<p>FWIW, older child scored 2400 on second try; 2350 first time. Younger child looks very similar in scoring potential. So I’m not coming from the position of “this will hurt my kids”. In fact, it will probably hurt my kids who are very poised test takers. I truly just get very, very tired of the overall treatment of the student in this process. I know CB will make money off score choice. But I also believe schools like H and P had the interests of the student applicants in mind when they endorsed the move to score choice. They are demonstrating a real understanding that beyond a certain level of score, it is pretty much pointless anyway. So they are leaving it to the applicant to present themselves in the best light possible.</p>
<p>The irony is that policies like those of Stanford and Yale are fueling, not diminishing, the mania for test prep. In their grand stand gesture to appear above the fray on the mania over scores, these institutions have simply added to the angst that students endure in applying to them. Yeah!</p>
<p>While I certainly appreciate bclintock’s often sage advice, likening the utilization of score choice counter to the college’s application rules to
strikes me as overstating things by a long shot.</p>
<p>Sewhappy has it right – let the students decide which tests to use.</p>
<p>Adria said
How about making that “help” optional, you know, like a choice?</p>
<p>I really resent the notion that a student who chooses to send which one of the scores HE paid for is so morally in the wrong, but the number of colleges that routinely manipulate their numbers or withold information at their discretion seem to get a pass.</p>
<p>To accuse a multiple test taker of “gamesmanship” is a laugh when considering the jockeying for position the colleges engage in toward the USNWR rankings.</p>
<p>I’m not sure if they have a way of knowing but right now I’m not going to jeopardize my application by failing to submit all scores if an institution requires me to do so.</p>
<p>^ of course you must comply with the requests to submit all scores. No question there. But I do think applicants and their families are free to at least form judgements of certain institutions based on their posture on this issue. After all, the customer in all of this is the student.</p>
<p>Sewhappy. The College Board is trying to have their cake (rake in more $ from test-takers) and eat it (kowtow to colleges) too. </p>
<p>Actually, I don’t think the colleges really care either how many times kids take the tests, they are just posturing to prove they “disapprove” of practices (mulitiple tast-taking) that are said to unfairly advantage higher-income students. </p>
<p>It’s all a game. Guess who pays the price?</p>
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<p>Wait a minute. I never said that using Score Choice is tantamount to cheating. Not at all. I have no problem with using Score Choice with colleges that allow you to selectively submit test scores. I just said that if a college asks you to submit ALL your test scores and you selectively submit only some test scores, that’s cheating. Most colleges seem just fine with Score Choice, and the ACT has used a Score Choice-like policy all along. I have no problem with that. But if they ask you provide certain information and you don’t provide all that they explicitly ask for, and then you sign a certification that the information you’re providing is complete and accurate, you’re cheating. You may or may not get busted, but if you do, you fully deserve to be tossed out of the applicant pool.</p>
<p>Besides Stanford and Yale, has anyone seen any specific request for submitting all the scores on school’s websites or application forms from the colleges they are applying to? If College Board guideline says that the schools require all scores but there is no mention of this requirement anywhere else, is it wrong to use score choice?</p>