I’m a senior in high school and I took the SAT for practice 4 times during my high school years before finally taking it for real at the end of my junior year. Anyway, my intent was never to show my practice scores to any college and now as I’m getting ready to apply to colleges I find out that “score choice” only exists for some schools. Many colleges insist I send all my scores.
I have no problem sending the scores for the last two tests I took. (1920 and then a 2150) but I prefer not to send the scores of the exams I took as a sophomore 1710 and then 1850). I guess my question is, if I send all 4 scores will it hurt me? Or will colleges be happy to see that I increased my scores significantly each time I took the exam?
And if I don’t send all the scores how will a college know?
I know about superscoring but in my case it doesn’t help because I improved on each section each time I took the SAT.
It would be cheating not to send them all. Everyone might have higher scores if they took it 4 or 5 times. That said, I do not believe the colleges would know.
Only a small number of colleges require all scores, though. And unless you are hooked, 2150 isn’t very competitive at most of the ones that do.
Bottom line – it is cheating, so you should send them all.
2150 is still top 97% nationally. Even at the IVY schools, it puts me in the middle range of many of them.
I never thought taking the SAT during my sophomore year could hurt me! While most might take the PSAT I chose to do the real thing at the beginning of my sophomore year because it made more sense as it would give me a much better indication of my actual score.
I will send all scores but will it hurt me? There is a big difference in knowledge as a sophomore and as a senior. Wouldn’t admissions know that a test taken as a sophomore is bound to have a lower score than one taken at the end of the junior year.