<p>I attended one of those college roadshows last night--this one put on by Yale featuring an admissions officer as the speaker. He said when score choice for the SAT becomes available, Yale is still going to require ALL SAT scores sent. </p>
<p>Has anyone heard any college address this issue?</p>
<p>I didn't know College Board was going to let you pick which scores to send.</p>
<p>Not for next year's seniors yet.</p>
<p>I believe he said this but it is hard to believe that this will really be the Yale policy. They don't require you to send all ACT scores. Why would they require you to send all SAT scores? </p>
<p>If it were true, the safest thing for prospective Yale students to do in the future would be the safest thing for everyone to do now: take the ACT first. If you are in the ballpark, take the ACT again. Send the best of the two ACT's in, as well as your SAT II scores if they are required or if they are great.</p>
<p>Do not take the SAT as an experiment to see how it goes now (for any college) or in the future (if you are interested in Yale) because if it goes poorly it will frustrate you to know the admissions officers will see it when you send them your SAT II scores.</p>
<p>This suggests that colleges (or at least Yale) are lying when they say they will consider only your highest score or your super score. If they don't take those other scores into consideration, why would they insist on seeing them?</p>
<p>Total speculation on my part, but my first thought is that Yale wants to report their students' SAT scores on the superscored (highest) basis. How many can state (or care) what the 25%-75% ACT range at Yale is?</p>
<p>I forget the source I read this from so I can't make citations, but I know some schools will still be requiring you to submit all scores to them (once the optional score reporting starts) so that they can see how many times you've taken it.</p>
<p>When the SAT had Score Choice for the SAT IIs, all tests taken appeared on the score report. There were just no scores reported for the tests the student hadn't released.</p>
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I attended one of those college roadshows last night--this one put on by Yale featuring an admissions officer as the speaker. He said when score choice for the SAT becomes available, Yale is still going to require ALL SAT scores sent.
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<p>The operative words here are "college roadshows" and "admissions officer." </p>
<p>I would pay about ZERO attention to what a traveling "salesman" tells an audience months before the mechanism of the new rules are put in place. The new policy only starts in March 2009, or well after the application for the Class of 2013 are due. There is plenty of time to change the "rules" for the Class of 2014.</p>
<p>Since the new SAT "rules" were announced, a number of colleges have suggested that they WILL continue to expect to see all SAT scores. I think the purpose of this is twofold: First, they want to know the full range of scores the applicant has received and, secondly, they want to distinguish between the advantaged applicant who has made five or six attempts (hopefully not more!) to earn strong scores, as opposed to the less advantaged (or less obessive) applicant who could not afford multiple test administrations (or who is busy doing other, more constructive things.)</p>
<p>Regardless of the merits of the positions about the number of times a student takes the SAT, one has to wonder about the TECHNICAL issues of a school "wanting" to see all scores and the College Board's new score choice. </p>
<p>Will schools such as USC or Yale ask students to report all scores on a *honor *system? Will they automatically deny a student who exercise his or her right to score choice? Could the requests by private schools such as Yale or USC also represent a violation of the rights of privacy of the students as the students merely exercise an option GIVEN to them by the College Board? </p>
<p>We should remember that the College Board is a membership institution owned by its members, namely colleges. One has to assume that they did not reach this decision lightly or without extensive consultation with their ONLY true clients. </p>
<p>My take on this is that the position of Yale or USC is another sign of shools playing the misinformation game or not being happy about the growing movement to full transparency. One way to accomplish this is by having junior officers making statements that are not confirmed by official policies.</p>
<p>Fwiw, it's not a great surprise that USC or Yale are part of such group.</p>
<p>Sally, If some colleges are going to ask to see all SAT scores, will they also also ask to see all ACT scores? Also, I wonder if SAT scores are superscored, will more schools superscore ACT scores if they were to begin to require sending in all scores. </p>
<p>I find it unfair to have the standardized test companies tell juniors that there will be score choice, only to have the rules change on them when they begin to apply as seniors.</p>
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If some colleges are going to ask to see all SAT scores, will they also also ask to see all ACT scores?
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<p>That's a really good question. I'll ask some of my adcom pals what's in the cards.</p>
<p>Re the superscoring of ACT's ... over the years, I've found that admission folks seem much more focused on the ACT Composite than on the section sub-scores, while, with the SAT, close attention is paid to the individual CR and Math scores (to the writing, too, but much less so). </p>
<p>That "culture" is changing a bit, so I'll also ask if there will be more "superscoring" ahead for the ACT's.</p>
<p>Xiggi makes a good point, too, about a putative score-report "honor system." Don't know how all of that will work either.</p>
<p>Oh how I long for the "old days" (my era) when little attention was paid to this stuff. I took the SATs once, as a junior (no prep, no thought of prep ... ditto my classmates), got the scores back a few weeks later, looked at 'em, shrugged, said, "These will do," and that was that.</p>
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<blockquote> <p>I think the purpose of this is twofold: First, they want to know the full range of scores the applicant has received....<<</p> </blockquote>
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<p>Which, if true, once again puts the lie the oft-repeated notion that for admissions purposes the schools consider only the highest score earned.</p>
<p>I really believe that it is way too early to speculate about the impact of the new rules, and I also believe that the adcoms will add little value at this time, since they can only offer an opinion, albeit one that is slightly more educated than the Average Joe. </p>
<p>There are different ways to evaluate the impact of score choice. For starters, superscoring AND score choice should be mutually exclusive. However, the should is all but eliminated by the STRONG desire (if not the need) for schools to report ever increasing SAT scores. Superscoring only exists because it makes the statistics a school report ... look better. </p>
<p>Had the schools really wanted to curb the practice of excessive test taking, they could have done it EASILY. They could have implemented diminishing return analyses or simply penalize repeated testing by lowering the value of second, third, or fourth tests. They could have announced they'd average all tests. Yet, what did they do? Making sure everyone knows about the superscoring! At many schools, adcoms ONLY see the best scores as they are entered on reading cards of files by technical assistants. In an age where adcoms have only a few minutes to read a complete file composed of dozens of important elements, the stories about *deep *analyses of SAT or ACT scores appear to be mostly mythical. </p>
<p>At this stage, I believe that there is little reason to worry about the changes and especially worry about the "statements" by adcoms. The College Board just approved the changes but has not released any details about how it work. If a student is placed in complete charge of NOT reporting a score on his or her official score report, I do not really see how ANY school could request a DIFFERENT score report. I seriously doubt that the College Board will implement a complete "a la carte" with an algorithm that matches a student's wishes with a school "instructions." Further, how does this work with the growing importance of the Common Application? </p>
<p>All in all, this probably will not be worth the ink that is spilled today. Yale and USC will probably drop their "requirements" ... especially if this means that students might decide NOT to apply to such schools because of a perceived discrimination. </p>
<p>Having the "pleasure" of counting and reporting fewer applications is not exactly on the agenda of Yale!</p>
<p>Thanks Sally.</p>
<p>It seems to me that what would be in the best interest of school rankings is to say that you may use score choice, but if you send in scores from more than one seating, we will superscore them and use your highest scores only for admission decisions, and that will be true for SATs and ACTs. It seems to me that this approach would be in the best interests of the schools, and the applicants.</p>