The day before taking the October SAT, my foot got injured in the middle of the school day. I was immediately taken to the ER (emergency room) to get treated, and I was discharged in the evening. The whole thing costed so much money, as you can imagine, and I was so stressed about that as my family cannot afford the medical fees (low-income). I could hardly get any sleep, much less focus while taking the test. I was so preoccupied with financial worries AND was in pain while taking the SAT test because the anesthesia wore down. Can I put this in the additional information as an extenuating circumstance? My SAT score was much lower than what I expected.
If it were me, I won’t put it. Why not take the November SAT?
I’m applying to 4 schools early. The latest SAT seating they’ll except is the October one
Talk to your GC about discussing ing it in their letter. Still think about retaking.
It doesn’t do any good to apply early if your stats aren’t what they need to be. The only way you are going to show the schools you can do the work is by retaking the SAT and getting a higher score.
I’m applying to these schools through QuestBridge. It’s a scholarship program that will help me get admitted to a school with a full scholarship. Unfortunately, I must apply by November 1 though, so I have no chance but to send them my October SAT score.
I guess you could ask your GC to put a comment in the school report, which I assume they still do for Questbridge applications. It is bad luck, but also colleges really aren’t going to cut slack for it – the score is the score. I’d suggest you plan to study and take again, in case you don’t get a Questbridge match – you are going to want the higher score.
If you have no other choice but to submit the application, I agree that it is better for the counselor to explain and obviously you can put in the information section. What do you have to lose by asking the counselor to explain it? But I will wonder (and may be I am not thinking like an admission officer) why doesn’t the student submit another test result? Do your best for your November test to show that the “bad” score was truly due to anxiety.
Questbridge does have strict rules. But if I were this student I’d be working on Plan B, and that means testing again. Quite a few students will have done their testing already in Junior year, not waiting until the last chance senior year. So while you can give the info to colleges, they may be thinking that advance planning (in case your score was low for whatever reason) isn’t really a strength of yours.