<p>^^Why would it? </p>
<p>Don’t forget, that every test administration is not equal in rigor. And, the difference between an 800 and a 760 could be one correct, but incompletely filled in bubble. (Perhaps the student’s pencil lead was getting down the the nibs.) Perhaps the single-sitting 2400 got lucky in that one or two of the mind-numbing CR passages happened to be about authors or subjects that the student just read about in HS so was familiar with the boring material.</p>
<p>WHY do you think adcoms would care? The simple fact is that one you clear a ‘750’ threshold, they KNOW you can do the work. They then go off and look at the rest of the app. Anything above 750 is a nice-to-have. (Of course, if you are applying to a top eng/tech school, an 800 in Math 2 is almost expected.)</p>
<p>If both 2400 students in your example have crappy ECs or poor recs, neither will be accepted.</p>
<p>And don’t forget, the adcom might not even see the number of times that the test was taken. In some/many cases, a clerk just writes (or computer prints a label with) the highest individual scores on the outside of the application folder. They don’t add a gold star for ‘one-sitting’. :D</p>