<p>My D received her OCT 2011 SAT scores today. She had a 30 point increase in Math (660 to 690), a 10 point decrease in writing (630 to 620), but a 90 point decrease in CR (620 to 530!!). Not sure what happened, maybe just a bad day...</p>
<p>Anyway, she is applying to colleges that superscore, but we are very concerned about sending out that CR score. I mean, admissions will SEE it. Is a 30 point increase in score worth the risk of admissions questioning such a significant decrease in CR? </p>
<p>The breakdown is:
1310 (superscored) vs 1280 (CR & M)
1940 (superscored) vs 1910 (CR, M & W)</p>
<p>She is planning to major in Math/Statistics, and hopes to get into the Honors program (at least at her match school). </p>
<p>I realize it's not all about SAT scores, and D's grades & GPA are good...We are just concerned about raising a red flag with that 90 pts decrease in her senior year.</p>
<p>Do you get to pick and choose which sitting to send? (sorry I’m in ACT land where you can pick one set of scores to send)…sounds the the previous sitting would be the one to send? The 660/630/620 sounds like the one to send?</p>
<p>I’m speaking just from instinct–If she were majoring in the humanities, I’d send just the first set of scores. But as a math/stats major, the 60 points makes a difference, especially if the superscore will help her into the honors college.</p>
<p>It sounds as if her transcript speaks for itself, and if she’s hoping for the honors college, I assume the school is a fairly safe match for her in general. So really you’re just giving them some evidence to boost her into honors. But again, that’s instinct talking, not knowledge.</p>
<p>For the SAT, you can send in all the scores and many colleges will take the best/highest score in each subject from multiple sittings (they call it superscoring). You can also just send in the scores from one sitting (unless the college requires all scores).</p>
<p>Gwen-</p>
<p>You bring up a good point, and I was thinking along those lines as well. </p>
<p>We are leaning towards sending them in and hoping for the best…</p>
<p>I would send them all in, I dont’ think this is that uncommon of a scenario. A kid goes in, trying to increase one aspect of their score, and the others may suffer a little. If they say that they super score, then you have to take them at their word. I think some school have a computer that just puts the highest score into your record. Plus they know kids go into these tests with strategies. The whole idea of super score is to make the test taking less stressful.</p>
<p>I would send them all in and take the school(s) at their word that they super score. Most schools we have visited do super score and made it a point to mention that they look at the best case scenario for the student - so send in all the scores. I hope that this is what actually happens in the admissions review but…who knows!
I have become very tired of this whole college application process! I am to the point where we can not turn back time so we have to move forward and work with what we have! (that is just some general venting - not directed at any prticualr post)</p>
<p>Send them all in. Every admissions officer I’ve heard talks swears they won’t hold the low score against you. At some admissions offices some underlining actually only records the highest scores.</p>
<p>The only reason colleges super score is so their statistics can look better for college rankings. Any scores you send them they are going to use to evaluate your application - you have score choice use it.
It’s like when a jury hears something and the judge says “the jury is to disregard that information” - impossible once the jury hears it. Same is true once they see a low score.
Don’t give them the opportunity to see a low score</p>
<p>sharkey, score choice doesn’t apply to individual scores, just to test dates. So, for OP to use score choice she would either have lost the much better CR score or the better Math score. </p>
<p>I agree that institutions use score choice mainly for their own benefit. But I also think they’re looking for good students and not interested on nitpicking SAT scores. Score choice gives them more leeway to admit good students without worrying about their reported SATs. (After all, colleges get judged too, and as we can see on this site, the most common if simplistic way to do that is to compare admitted students SATs.)</p>
<p>If they say that they superscore, believe them!
This happened to my daughter. She wanted to raise one score, so she focused only on studying for that part of the test. She took the test again, and that score went up and the other two went down. She sent in all scores and was admitted to the college of her choice despite the decline.</p>
<p>I know that score chioce only applies to testing dates , not individual scores. My point to the original poster - Mom 2 Senior is that she decided to sent in a second testing date (that showed a derease of 90 points in CR - 620 to 530) to gain a superscore of 30 points. To me this small gain in nor woth the risk of having a college see that large of a drop in CR - I would have only sent the original test.
Levirm has no idea that the reason her daughter was admitted was because she superscored. To waste time taking a test three times and focus on a different section each time looks foolish to admissions.
If I had 2 identical canadates - both with scores of 2200 - one took the test in one seating and the other took it three times to get the 2200 (supercored a different section each test) which canadate would you take - common sense</p>
<p>Thanks so much for everyone’s input…I really appreciate it.</p>
<p>Sharkey- your point is exactly what I was concerned about…that even if a college won’t officially use that low score, they WILL SEE it, and it could possibly impact an admissions decision (particularly if she was borderline). And of course, we were contemplating whether the 30 point increase in M was worth revealing that 90 point decrease in CR.</p>
<p>I think there are pros and cons to sending all sets of scores or sending just the strongest overall set, but we went ahead and submitted all sets of scores last night. </p>
<p>Our logic for doing so was based on several things. First, since my daughter’s major will be math/statistics, it would be nice for colleges to see the strongest score in that (even though it is only a 30 pt difference, 660 vs 690). Also, we are just taking the colleges’ word that they will “take the best & ignore the rest” which I realize is somewhat of a gamble on our part. Also, superscoring all her SATs would allow her to meet all of her 1st choice college’s requirements for the honors college (one being a SAT of 1300+ CR&M). We also took into account that some merit aid/scholarships frequently superscore the SAT to determine awards. </p>
<p>I hadn’t mentioned this in my orginal post, but D had also taken the SAT in her sophomore year, her CR score was 610 (which we had already submitted). So we were thinking that they will see CR scores of 610 and 620, then maybe they would be more likely to see the 530 as a fluke.</p>
<p>The funny (and sad) thing is that, in preparing for the Oct. 2011 SAT, my daughter was focusing mainly on increasing her weakest score/area, CR! So the 530 was completely unexpected.</p>
<p>As I said, her GPA/grades/class ranking are strong, so we will just move on now and hope that one bad score won’t have a significant impact.</p>
<p>Good luck, hope she gets into the college of her choice. Although this discussion has focused on test scores, remember that is just one part of the applicants credentials</p>