SAT and ACT Reporting

<p>Son has question (and I didn't have the answer).</p>

<p>I have said this elsewhere but the SAT has proven not to be his friend. He took them three times and although he went up every single time across the board, he just has a horrible time NOT answering a question and I honestly think that hurt his scores. (my opinion on this is that the SAT does not exactly encourage critical thinking.)</p>

<p>ACT's at 33 composite is much better than SAT's of mostly 690's.</p>

<p>So here's the question: Even if you are not going to report your SAT scores, would you put them on the common application anyway? Would this weaken his entire application?</p>

<p>With a 33 ACT score, what is the potential benefit of showing a fine, but comparatively weaker, SAT score?
I don't see it, especially if he is applying to Liberal Arts, as opposed to Engineering (but that's just one person's opinion).</p>

<p>My thinking was that if you never mention them then it might be assumed you never took them OR You did far worse than you did.</p>

<p>He wasn't sending them from college board, but I will just tell him to take them off the application as well.</p>

<p>^I agree, just don't put them on his application...I don't think it'll be counted against him.</p>

<p>690s are really good in each section, and they are just a little bit below the mean of Tufts, if you do decide to show them your SAT scores, I don't think they will hate you. But I am certainly jealous of your son's SAT standings.</p>

<p>You are never required to submit any piece of testing. You are required to submit some testing, but there's no rule we have about needing to send all of it. If you don't want to report, don't report. No more thinking is needed than that. </p>

<p>If you do report the SATs, then at least at Tufts, those scores will have absolutely no impact on his application. From what you say about his SAT vs ACT testing, the ACT is significantly better. I know that many of you are disinclined to believe me, but I'm saying it anyway because it's true: in a case where one test is definitively stronger, we will use whichever testing is better and completely disregard the other.</p>

<p>I'm serious about that.</p>