<p>Is there such thing as taking too many SAT tests? I am taking my fifth one next week.
I'm planning to take 1~2 more tests.</p>
<p>I’d say three is the maximum amount of times you’d want to take it without it looking…rather strange. I suppose it couldn’t hurt you, but it shouldn’t look as decent, obviously, as if you got a good score within your first few tests. </p>
<p>And if you haven’t improved much after your fifth test, what honestly makes you think you’re going to score significantly higher than you have before? Either you’re trying to be a perfectionist (I’ve seen people retake 2380s for 2400s) or you have a low score and hope to be “lucky” once. Personally, I disapprove of both routes, and I’m sure admissions officers will be able to see through the 2300 that is obtained after six 1800s.</p>
<p>You mean formal ones and not practice, right?</p>
<p>If you’re studying seriously (and studying smart: you’re researching methods and strategies, not just doing practice test after practice test), then I’d say you’ve probably hit your score cap or you weren’t taking the previous tests seriously.</p>
<p>I’d agree with **mitigated<a href=“nice%20username%20there”>/b</a>: 3 max, and 2 is probably a reasonable number to shoot for. Why are you taking your fifth? Why are you planning to take more? What’s your logic there?</p>
<p>I’ve taken it 4 times, stopped, and then tried the ACT. It took me a while to realize I was hoping to get lucky on a testing rather than actually prepare for it, and do well.</p>
<p>Mm. It’s definitely going to look odd on an application and quite possibly a negative. In such a scenario I wouldn’t know what to say because not everyone has the CC approach to the SAT or the information on how it works in college admissions.</p>
<p>Have your 5 tests been spread out across many years? I know people whose parents made them take it 1-2 times per year since around 8th grade, but if they were all junior/senior year tests, then seriously stop. Just take practice ones to improve, and aim to have one good sitting instead of many progressively better ones. Also, try the ACT - I’m not sure you want to be submitting all those scores to colleges.</p>
<p>The top schools will frown upon 5 tests, but it won’t hurt you much, if at all. A lot of other schools won’t care, they just look at the superscore. The competitive schools will ask why you put so much time into the SAT when you could have been broadening yourself with ECs or community service.</p>
<p>Only a very few schools require you to show them all the tests you took. The vast majority now offer Score Choice. Even Harvard has Score Choice (Yale does not; the UCs do not).</p>
<p>Yeah but can’t you technically hide test scores even if the school doesn’t want you do?</p>
<p>RE: "The competitive schools will ask why you put so much time into the SAT when you could have been broadening yourself with ECs or community service. "</p>
<p>My answer to the above question is simply that the competitive schools REQUIRE great SAT scores, so don’t be surprised that people spend lots of time trying to get them. Similarly, the competitive schools all require ECs and community service, so don’t be surprised if people try to get them. How can a school penalize a student from actively pursuing a competitive school requirement? When, for example, can a student have too much community service or too many ECs? The colleges all bring this on themselves. If the colleges announced that they seriously take “Locks for Love” into consideration, we would all shave our heads and be bald. It’s what they want – don’t be surprised if students then try to be “perfect” with regards to what they want.</p>
<p>placido: The top schools will reply to you that they look at the student applicants holistically - the SATs are only part of the equation. Their holistic look will frown upon one who focused too much on his SAT scores. Nobody wants a campus filled with kids who took the SAT five times. They will accept a student with a lower SAT who demonstrates on his application that he is interesting and spent his time doing interesting things. They will tell you, that in their view, chasing high SAT scores by taking the test five times is not interesting.</p>
<p>Part of me tends to agree with Placido240. Since when does dragging oneself to a soup kitchen every Saturday morning for 1,000 hours of community service imply anything of “value” any more than taking the SAT five times if that is what the kid want to do. There is a certain doggedness in both actions, yes? The colleges always demand that we “be ourselves,” except when they don’t want us to be . . .</p>
<p>I just think the colleges don’t like the SAT thing thrown back into their face – as someone clearly does when he/she takes the SAT five times. Clearly the colleges believe that SAT is VERY important; why stress if kids accept the importance of what the college feels is VERY important and take it multiple times? Why shouldn’t a kid exhibit a desire to improve himself on this test? Why should colleges penalize a kid for attempting to do so? Half the Korean violinists wouldn’t exist in this world if applicants felt that colleges didn’t care about “music awards,” etc. If practicing the violin 40 hours a week is considered “commitment” and some evidence of virture, why shouldn’t practicing the SAT? The SAT is full of important stuff like reading and math – why shouldn’t a kid want to become proficient in these things? Apples to apples? Let’s have all the violinists list all the competitions they go to each year – hmmmm, maybe more than two or three is excessive!!</p>
<p>trollllllllllllll</p>