<p>Is this just a common "silent" rule or have colleges explicitly said it? I've taken the SAT three times and my highest superscored is 2030.. I definitely NEED to take the SAT again but even if I do well (2200+) will colleges look down on me for trying so many times?</p>
<p>I've already taken the ACT twice too, and my best is a 31. I'll be retaking it one more time -- is that one time too many?</p>
<p>I think that college admissions deans are fine with retaking if you want to be competitive, and I don’t think they really care how many times you need to take the SAT to get that score. If the average score of those who get into a certain college is 2200, and you have a 2000, you probably should retake if you think you can get above 2200. That will help. I think the problem is when you get a great score (above average), but you keep retaking it just for the sake of getting a 2400. And it’s especially bad when you keep retaking but don’t improve. Then again, an admissions dean once said very explicitly that she doesn’t care how many times a student takes the SAT. The student could take it 100 times; the admissions office wouldn’t care. I don’t think you should worry about looking bad because you want to take the SAT a third time. It’s no big deal, and I think that admissions deans couldn’t care less how many times you take it.</p>
<p>You have score choice…</p>
<p>i thought colleges average your sat scores after the third time.
i wish i could retake it a fourth time, too. :(</p>
<p>Colleges will only see the ACT scores you send so they will not know how many times you took it…</p>
<p>Unless you’re applying to a college that doesn’t allow you to use score choice, take it as MANY times as you could possibly want. WHY you would want to take it that many times, though, is puzzling- Unless you enjoy wasting 4 hours of Saturday mornings, of course.</p>
<p>My personal advice is to only continue taking it if you can keep improving.</p>
<p>speaking of score choice, is there a list somewhere of which colleges do or don’t “allow” it.</p>
<p>Schools that prohibit score-choice really have no way of knowing if you’re lying or not, just FYI.</p>
<p>but if they accept you then later find out you lied, they’ll defn rescind your admission.</p>
<p>Should we maybe stop sending the scores when we take the test and then wait until our official app and just choose that one score to send?</p>
<p>I mean, damage has been done. We’ve been automatically sending scores as we’ve taken the test. But maybe if son retakes ACT or SAT after this, we just won’t send it to anybody and wait and see what it is and then send it if it’s an improvement. And we are kind of worried about taking it too many times and doing worse every time, rather than improving.</p>
<p>Have a thought about why son and others may do worse over time. </p>
<p>I think it’s a pressure factor.</p>
<p>Your first time, you figure, okay, this is just practice, you’re very relaxed. Then when you get your score back, and it’s better than you expected, you put pressure on yourself to better that first score. You think, Hey, I got a XXX and I didn’t even prepare. Then you go take those prep courses and you have more education under your belt as time passes. </p>
<p>You go in, take the test, and feel okay about it. Then you get your score back and you did worse than the first time! Oh, you feel awful! You never want to take that stupid test again! (Can you tell I’m quoting from experience here?)</p>
<p>Will your attitude, fear, disgust, apathy, make you do worse the third time, and therefore, colleges see you as “slacking” off as you go on with school?</p>
<p>Or will you take the chance to get a better score because you do have more schooling under your belt, maybe some more maturity, and you will improve?</p>
<p>Any thoughts on this?</p>
<p>Just random question : I took Jan SAT 1 and was really surprised to see that my writing score was 720(but my other two scores were embarassingly low, especially the reading). </p>
<p>in my case it was good writing score with bad essay score. Any advice on how to improve my essay score?? Do you think it’s not so good to write according to the format?? (or simply my essay sucked) is it better to have own writing style or sth??</p>
<p>And also do I just have to read a lot and practice a lot for reading section??</p>
<p>The common wisdom is that after the second retake, there’s no statistical backup for significantly higher scores.</p>
<p>In practice, though, I think 4 times is perhaps a practical limit. I took the SAT 3 times, and I don’t see why colleges would look down on someone who was really trying to raise their score. If you take it more than 4 times you begin to look a bit obsessive (and of course your chances of raising your score go down each successive time you take it – plus if you take it 5 times and get around a 2000 every time, and then suddenly on the 6th time you get a 2300, that looks weirder than getting a 2000 once or twice and then shooting up).</p>
<p>I don’t think you should retake your ACT. A 31 is very high already, and is in the score ranges of pretty much every top school in the country. But three times is not too many times to take one test.</p>
<p>Consider if you are really doing better over time, percentile-wise. Statisically speaking, your chances of scoring higher decrease the more times that you take the test.</p>
<p>Adelina, writing according to the format is actually your best bet – I hate to say that, but you will get a higher score if you lay it all out in that asinine 5-paragraph essay format. Also, write a longer essay. Longer essays tend to get higher scores. This is bad advice for general writing, but good advice for SAT writing. Make sure one of your examples is ripped from the headlines.</p>
<p>I would set the limit at 3 myself… And only if you are reallyyyy confident you can get it (your score) up</p>