Possibly Dumb Question about Multiple SAT I Scores

Colleges and Universities A-Z Massachusetts Institute of Technology
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<p>Elsewhere in cyberspace, I got into a discussion about whether there is ever any risk in reporting more than previous SAT I score if at least one of the scores is competitive for the applicant's desired college. The two positions that have come up in online debate are </p>

<p>1) it makes no difference how many SAT I scores you report, as long as one is a solid score for the college of your choice, </p>

<p>and </p>

<p>2) it's better not to report another SAT I score, lower than your best, because that might cause your best score to look worse. </p>

<p>What do you think? I imagine the MIT admission officers are too busy right now to give the definitive answer to this question (but I think Ben and Matt have both answered questions like this in their blogs). And besides MIT, what does any other college say about this? Is it best to report only one SAT I score? Is it a risk of being rejected for admission to have both an amply high score and also a lower score? </p>

<p>Thanks for all advice and links you can recommend about this issue.</p>

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<p>I think that, unfortunately, seeing lower scores will subconciously cause people to feel as if the higher scores are not as impressive. On the other hand, however, maybe it also subconciously suggests that the test-taker put in the effort to get a better score.</p>

<p>It might just be that, in the long run, only the highest score influences decisions, as the pros and cons of having taken multiple tests and receiving differential results negate one another.</p>

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<p>I don't think that's a dumb question -- I think it's completely undeniable that people on CC would see a lower score accompanied by a higher score as evidence of something like abject stupidity and obsessive test prep. I don't think that's how MIT admissions officers view it. The impression that I get from reading the blogs is that scores aren't important enough to the application to worry about it.</p>

<p>In this</a> blog entry, Matt talks about the emphasis on test scores:


</p>

<p>I think the admissions officers take care not to let themselves be affected by factors they explicitly don't consider, so I don't think a poor score would be a negative if accompanied by a better score. Besides, you can't pick and choose which SAT scores to report, so it's something of a moot point anyway. :)</p>

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<p>There's also another reason to not repeatedly take the SAT. MIT, at least, doesn't really want the type of person that stresses over SATs. Taking it twice is fine. 3x is probably pushing it.</p>

<p>Believe me, its far more important to have 1 more interesting thing that you've done to tell MIT than to have the extra 50 points. Use that Saturday to do something interesting that you enjoy!</p>

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<p>How can you report "just one" SAT I score if you've taken the test more than once? Score reports sent to colleges show all past scores, on all SAT I and II tests. The MIT application has one space to report your highest single-seating score on the SAT I, but they require the official score reports, which will show everything.</p>

<p>Am I missing something here?</p>

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<p>no, mootmom....its a "moot"point.</p>

<p>bahahahahaha i should be PUNished!</p>

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<p>The original context of the discussion on Brand X was a young person wondering if he should cancel an earlier test date if he later found out that there was a second test date nearer his home. (He expected the long trip from home to the earlier test location to reduce his score.) I told him that there was no HARM in having more than one test score on his record, especially in that circumstance, because colleges never make a lower score hurt you if you also submit a higher score. It was my formulation of my reply in those terms--that's its never harmful to have a score on the record lower than the best score--that has evoked some disagreement, but so far with no evidence that college admission offices work that way. Mollie B.'s reply is about what I expected: don't sweat the small stuff. I think MIT is sensible that way, and so is any college worthy of being called a "peer" to MIT. (I have heard a Harvard admission officer say, "Anyone can have a bad day," when explaining the policy both Harvard and MIT have of counting students' best scores section by section on admission tests.)</p>

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<p>3 times is not pushing it. Taking the SAT 3 times is perfectly fine.</p>

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<p>I wouldn't agree here, for example the Harvard FAQ section goes like this:
"If a student takes the required tests more than once, which results does Harvard consider?
We consider a student's best test scores, but it is generally our experience that taking tests more than twice offers diminishing returns."</p>

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<p>IMO, 3 times is "perfectly fine" if you've had a "bad" day and you finally arrive at a score of which you're capable. Taking it multiple times IF you begin in the low/mid 700s is evidence of something, I'm not sure what.</p>

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<p>Wow! Someone revived my thread from back when I was data-gathering. Here is one of the FAQs that came out of that data-gathering. I see that this thread is in the MIT Forum, and I should point out that it is well known that MIT is somewhat less test-score-driven in its admission process than some other colleges, so there is correspondingly less reason to retake if one has already scored well. </p>

<p>ONE-TIME TEST-TAKING </p>

<p>Colleges have given up trying to distinguish one-time test-takers from two-time or three-time or even four-time test-takers, because that wasn't useful information to the colleges. There are a number of reasons for that. </p>

<p>1) The colleges have utterly no way of knowing who spends all his free time practicing taking standardized tests and who takes them "cold." </p>

<p>2) The colleges are well aware that students who have actually taken the tests sometimes cancel scores, so they have little incentive to give students bonus consideration if the students submit only one test score. </p>

<p>3) The colleges are aware that students who take the admission tests at middle-school age, who are numerous, do not have their earlier test scores submitted by default. </p>

<p>SAT</a> Younger than 13 </p>

<p>Hoagies</a>' Gifted: Talent Search Programs </p>

<p>Duke</a> TIP - Interpreting SAT and ACT Scores for 7th Grade Students </p>

<p>4) Colleges are aware that the majority of students who take the SAT at all take it more than once. </p>

<p><a href="http://www.collegeboard.com/prod_downloads/highered/ra/sat/AverageScores.pdf%5B/url%5D"&gt;http://www.collegeboard.com/prod_downloads/highered/ra/sat/AverageScores.pdf&lt;/a> </p>

<p>5) Colleges are in the business of helping students learn, and they don't mind students taking efforts to improve their scores. They know that students prepare for tests. </p>

<p>From the New York Times: "Although coaching would no doubt continue if subject tests replaced the SAT, at least students would be focused on content as much as test-taking strategies, Mr. Murray said. There would also be pressure to improve local high school curriculums so that students were prepared, he wrote.</p>

<p>"These arguments make sense to Mr. Fitzsimmons [dean of admission at Harvard], who said, 'People are going to prepare anyway, so they might as well study chemistry or biology.' He added that 'the idea of putting more emphasis on the subject tests is of great interest' to his group." </p>

<p><a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2007/09/19/education/19sat.html?pagewanted=print%5B/url%5D"&gt;http://www.nytimes.com/2007/09/19/education/19sat.html?pagewanted=print&lt;/a> </p>

<p>6) And now the College Board is back in the business of letting students choose which test scores to send into colleges, </p>

<p>New</a> SAT Score-Reporting Policy </p>

<p>so now there is less reason than ever to suppose that colleges care how many times you take the test, because the colleges have no way to know how many times you took the test officially. </p>

<p>Colleges treat applicants uniformly now by considering their highest scores, period. </p>

<p><a href="http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/parents-forum/349391-retake-how-many-times-take-sat-act.html#post4198038%5B/url%5D"&gt;http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/parents-forum/349391-retake-how-many-times-take-sat-act.html#post4198038&lt;/a> </p>

<p><a href="http://www.admissions.college.harvard.edu/utilities/electronic_resources/viewbook/Rollo0708_GuideApplying.pdf%5B/url%5D"&gt;http://www.admissions.college.harvard.edu/utilities/electronic_resources/viewbook/Rollo0708_GuideApplying.pdf&lt;/a> </p>

<p>From the Harvard admission office: "If you submit more than one set of scores for any of the required tests, the Admissions Committee considers only your best scores--even if your strongest SAT Subject Tests or portions of the SAT Reasoning Test were taken on different dates."</p>