<p>My daughter took the SAT's twice, first time scoring a 2170 and just received her second score of 2030. She's having a hard time understanding how colleges will look at this. Do they only take the top score? Will the lower scores in some way psychologically hinder their opinion of her? She has applied ED to Amherst, and was very unnerved by this morning's report. Exactly how does this whole thing work? Do you think the second scores will hurt her chances for admission? Please reply.</p>
<p>(Replied to your other posting as well).
No, the lower scores are not supposed to hurt.
Admission is still based on one's overall record/strength/essays/recomm etc.</p>
<p>Our S had lower 2nd/3rd testings on SAT I & admitted to 3 Ivies.</p>
<p>Your daughter is not alone. My s did well enough when he took the SAT's in May, but his scores from the October test plummeted (particulary in CR).</p>
<p>yes, the same thing happened to me. i got a 2220 in June and a 2120 now. But my CR score went up from 690 - 730. All the schools I'm applying to (in fact all schools generally) take the highest individual SAT score on each section. So I don't think there's much to worry about.</p>