<p>is it true that MIT only cares about 1 of these tests?
for example, i heard that theres no advantage in taking both tests as they will only look at the highest grade for one of these tests?</p>
<p>should i still take both tests and score really high to impress MIT?</p>
<p>also for subject II SAT, it says that MIT will require 1 math test and 1 science test (takes top scores). Lets say i get 800 in chem an d800 in physics, is there no real advantage for me getting that compared to a person that only gets 800 in chem and does not take physics?</p>
<p>The general sentiment of the MIT admissions office has been that standardized tests are just one piece of information on your application, and they're mostly used to make sure you could do the work more than anything else. A 2400 will never be an automatic admit, nor will a 36. I'd find something more fun to do with your Saturday morning than retaking a standardized test if you score within the median scores the first time.</p>
<p>That's not entirely true. At the most extreme, getting a 2400 and a 36 will be impossible to ignore. To a much lesser extent, the same is true for every additional 800 on an SAT II. I took the biology, chemistry, and physics SAT IIs because I felt I could get impressive scores on all three that would help my application; they don't just ignore other perfect scores because you already have one previous. In fact, because there is no "better" score between two 800s, or two 790s, they basically have to consider both.</p>
<p>You simply don't -need- multiple good scores, but every additional good score is still going to be that much of a boost. Admittedly, the boost is relatively small in most cases, but it's a boost nonetheless.</p>
<p>When MIT says they consider only the highest score, they really do only consider the highest score -- in the case that you submit more than one high score, I believe one is picked to put on the card summarizing your application.</p>
<p>Based on what the admissions office has published, I don't believe there's any sort of boost for submitting scores above and beyond what MIT requests, even if they are very good.</p>
<p>Someone who gets 800 on all the existing SAT IIs isn't going to have all minus one of the test scores ignored. Likewise, someone with one good score but many, many horrific scores is still going to get the short end of the stick as a result of the latter. It's a spectrum, in which adcoms can always claim to consider only some of the scores, but the rest are always going to factor subconsciously. The extent depends exactly on what the scores are.</p>
<p>You're right that they will try, but I'm pretty sure that the more extreme the case, the more likely such an attempt will fail. The only way I see they could circumvent the problem is if someone other than the adcoms passes along only the best qualifying score to them, in that that's all they're going to see/know about. I suppose that's similar to the "card summarization" practice, if that means only one adcom ever knows what your multiple test scores are, but someone involved in the actual decision does know, and under the right circumstances, that therefore could help/hurt.</p>