<p>High schoolers at that age mostly grow intellectually, and it wouldn't be at all unheard of for scores to increase that simply from becoming better at reading, math, and writing from practice in school learning and personal recreation, without any "test prep" as such. But one might as well do a bit of test prep of the best kind: becoming familiar with the test format and practicing how to read, do math, and write well.</p>
<p>normallyit's best to take no more than 3 times
although in ur case it is different</p>
<p>u got that score aas a sophomore</p>
<p>if u took it twice junior year, and once senior year
it wouldnt be a problem since it will actually show ur academic improvement throughout highschool</p>
<p>If you really want to help yourself get into Duke or MIT, then you would be wise to retake. I got my highest score as a senior, so give yourself some time or plan on taking it twice more.</p>
<p>No, not unless its your 4th time taking the SAT. Then it gets horrible.</p>
<p>well, if you only have to take it once, it would be the best.</p>
<p>i dont know, but to me, takaing it once (no supercore) with a 2300 is more impressive than taking it twice and getting a 2320 or a 2340. i think anything above 98-99 percent is not worth taking</p>
<p>yea taking it up to three times is good, but try not to take it more than three times - for your own sake, and for admissions</p>
<p>
[quote]
if you only have to take it once, it would be the best
[/quote]
</p>
<p>What is the evidence for this?</p>
<p>in my opinion. wouldnt taking it once be more impressive as opposed to taking it twice or three times?</p>
<p>i guess its like doing a flip, wouldnt it be more impressive if you could do it on your first try as opposed to not? (bad example lol)</p>
<p>
[quote]
in my opinion. wouldnt taking it once be more impressive as opposed to taking it twice or three times?
[/quote]
</p>
<p>I've seen a lot of people express that opinion here on CC, and there was a time when I was of the same opinion, but while I was away from home this afternoon I saw a new book about college admission that explicitly suggested taking the SAT I two or three times (presumably, this advice doesn't apply to students who get 2400 the first time) because scores usually rise on retakes. I wonder, in this new era in which many (most?) students retake the SAT I, if college admission officers care anymore about retakes. I will ask about this issue when I attend the Exploring</a> College Options joint meeting in my town, and perhaps you can do the same in your town. (I can see that you are a student, curious about the admission process, and attending that meeting might answer some of your questions.) Those of you onlookers who want to check my source can look at the book Get</a> into Any College and see if you think the authors have a factual basis for their advice, which is to take the SAT I two or three times until one obtains a high score.</p>
<p>That book is written by people who were never admissions officers and does not provide new information from within any admissions office (quotations, numerical data, etc).</p>
<p>The more frequently SAT's are taken by applicants, the more scores of 2400 attained, and the lower the proportion of one-shot 2400's among all perfect scores. That would reduce the value of a 2400 but raise the relative value of a one-shot over a multi-shot perfect score --- if rarity is what drives the value.</p>
<p>That's what I'm still trying to find out: is what is sought rarity as such or meeting a threshold of being able to perform at the school. I will ask current admission officers and see what they say.</p>
<p>tokenadult,
DS's score report said that based on each section, he had an X% chance of his score increasing Y points and a X% change of it decreasing Y points. The downside risk was on the order of 100 points based on his numbers -- but he wasn't planning on re-taking it anyway.</p>
<p>Our school's program director said a one-shot high score is more impressive to admissions, but offered no evidence. This may be purely anecdotal. He also strongly recommended one SAT, no more than two -- but that's largely due to the population involved, where the average is on the order of 2200. I also suspect this was addressed more to the parents than the kids.</p>
<p>A 2400 represents a "true" score of 2280 - 2400, if you take the exam once. It should represent a "true" score of 2280 - 2520, but you won't be awarded anything higher than a 2400 even if you "earn" it. If you take the exam 50 times, your mean score of all the exams is probably closer to your "true" score. 40 years ago, most students were advised to take the SAT twice, once in the spring and once in the fall, after taking the PSAT as a sophomore, and the NMSQT (separate test in those days) as a junior. This was before early admissions, early acceptances, a plethora of prep books, prep courses, and, of course, the <a href="http://www">www</a>. So the idea of taking the exam more than once is not recent.</p>
<p>The biggest factor of the SAT -- know the stuff!!. If you are not good at math, writing and reading, you will not score well. There is no way to sell a large number of books with that advice, so people like The Princeton Review, and the people who publish Get into Any College need to offer tips and hints at how to beat the system, valid or not.</p>
<p>Half of the people who go to Harvard every year should have gone somewhere else. 80% of all people who want to go to Harvard have no real idea why, don't know much about the school, and will get a better education and opportunity to excel elsewhere.</p>
<p>My son (a junior) just got a 2180 (750/760/670). According to the score report, "Among students with critical reading scores of 750, 37% score higher on a second testing, 55% score lower, and 8% receive the same score." The numbers are 31/60/9% for cr and 41/52/7% for writing. </p>
<p>So in his case we're leaning toward not taking it again. However, for the original poster, since you took it as a sophomore I would be flabbergasted if your score doesn't improve when you're a junior. A year makes a big difference.</p>
<p>Most admissions offices look very carefully at your scores in relation to the academic opportunities you have had. If you attend a high school that sends very few students on to four-year colleges or a school that offers few advanced courses, the realistic expectation is that you aren't going to hit 2400. However, if you've had every educational advantage in the book, the realistic expectation is that you are going to score big. </p>
<p>We look not only at the actual scores, but also at <em>when you took the test</em>. If you've taken the test in sophomore year, again in junior year, and yet again in senior year, this is going to make sense to us as you've read more, you've been writing longer, and you've probably had more math. If you take it 3 times in junior year and another 3 times in senior year, well, that's a bit much and rather ridiculous. Taking the SAT or ACT more than three times over the junior and senior years isn't advisable - it looks silly; most students usually take it twice, maybe three times, in total. </p>
<p>This year, I had a student who, on first attempt, scored 790-800-780 (CR-M-W). The student took the exam another THREE times. Everyone at the committee table thought this was nuts...and the other three testings did not result in higher scores for the student.</p>
<p>AdOfficer,
One can only wonder where the parents were each time that kid asked for the credit card to sign up for yet another SAT sitting, and why they didn't say "2370 is fabulous! You're done!" <em>the first time</em> around!</p>
<p>Agreed! It was quite shocking to see, but sadly, this student was not the only one I saw this year with monster scores taking the test repeatedly. Such behavior certainly sends a message to an admissions committee....We are very much interested in understanding <em>what kind</em> of student an applicant is, and this certainly informed our understanding of these students.</p>
<p>AdOfficer, if I took the SAT 3 times with around a hundred score increase each time and hit a 2250+ by the third try, would it still look bad? I know that three is a bit excessive... but I'm aiming for top schools. I only have a low 2100ish score now, which seems pretty low compared to most of the applicants.</p>
<p>Glad you asked that question, aquamarinee, I'd like to know too...</p>
<p>AdOfficer, there have been discussions on CC as to whether the "superscoring" policies at most top schools, i.e. the distillation of an SAT score report down to the highest scores in each category, is the whole story of the use of SAT's in elite university admissions.</p>
<p>As far as I could glean, it may be the whole story for the objective uses of SAT in the admissions process, such as the math and verbal scores input to Academic Index computations, the numbers that are printed on the summary sheet for AdCom meetings, cutoffs for scholarship consideration, etc. </p>
<p>But is it precluded, at schools that "superscore", that the entire SAT score report be read and interpreted beyond the computation of highest scores? It is known that admissions notices the number of scores (if large), and (thanks to your posting above and some published reports in admissions books) that admissions officers also can take note of the timing of the tests.</p>
<p>Are there other more subtle effects?</p>
<p>For example:</p>
<p>-- an applicant takes SAT's 2 or 3 times, all the tests confirming the accuracy of an initial low score in (say) the Verbal which is low for the admit pool of the school. Imagine that the math scores are high or go up somewhat, so that having a "bad day" is not likely. Would the application have been read more favorably if the same result had been obtained in one SAT-taking (thus leaving room for charitable explanations of the low verbal score)?</p>
<p>-- an applicant takes SAT 3-4 times, where the superscore is hundreds of points higher than the total score at any of the sittings. e.g., a score report like
1. 550-720-550
2. 720-550-550
3. 550-550-720</p>
<p>(imagine an additional sitting of 550-550-550 if it makes a difference).</p>
<p>Would the "superscore" of 720-720-720 be treated as authoritative or as a misleading false positive for such an applicant?</p>
<p>This is often asked but rarely answered in CC, and knowledgeable input on this point would be a great thing.</p>