<p>I'm a junior. I just took the SATs for the first time yesterday, and I left my essay incomplete (intro and one fairly indepth paragraph. I was starting the third one as I was cut off.) I'm a good student taking fairly challenging courses but my SAT IIs (taken freshman and sophomore year) were not exemplary so far. I prepared like crazy for the SATs, and if I could clinch the essay, I know I could have a decent score (I got a 227 on the PSATs.) </p>
<p>My dad really seems to think that taking the SATs more than once is a bad idea. I know I'm not the most amazing person on here, but I want to apply to very good schools, and I know that doing well on the SATs could really help me. So, should I cancel yesterday's scores, and take them again in March? Or should I wait for my scores, and then take them again in March if need be?</p>
<p>How do the tops schools look on people who take the SATs more than once? Is it better to throw away these scores, or to keep them? </p>
<p>If you think you did well on at least one of the 3 sections of the SAT that you just took, I would definitely say do not cancel your score. Doing really well on one section of the SAT makes taking the test again a little more tolerable.</p>
<p>What happened to me was... I took the SAT once (May), and got a 790 and 800 on two sections. I scored in the mid-600s on the third section, and so retook the SAT a few months later (October) so that I'd have a chance to improve that one section.
Well, I prepped a lot over the summer, just for the one section, and wound up raising my score in that section by 90 points, giving me over a 2300 overall.</p>
<p>Maybe I'm digressing... But I'd say don't cancel. Even elite colleges don't care if you take the SAT two or three times. (After that I'd call it quits, cause chances are your scores really won't improve much... But 2 or 3 times is good.)</p>
<p>NO NO NO do not cancel. Most private universities superscore your SAT, so they take the highest individual section score even if it's from different sittings.</p>
<p>So if the first time you get an 800/800/600 and the second time you get a 600/600/800 then the college considers that a perfect 800/800/800. Extreme example, yes, but it illustrates my point.</p>
<p>Most applicants take the SAT 2-3 times. After that, there isn't much of a point to take them again and they might frown it you take it like, four times. But two times? No problem at all.</p>
<p>Additionally, a lot of schools do not weigh the writing as heavily as the other two sections (though by next year, perhaps they pretty much all will...plenty of other scores to compare with), so if that one section is where your weakness was, I really would not worry about it. Definitely don't cancel, taking it two times is certainly normal, and not seen negatively.</p>
<p>They wouldn't mind at all. A lot really just expect you to take them more than once. But, you should think about showing improvement. Colleges won't like it if you've taken the SAT 4 or 5 times without any significant difference. Try to limit yourself to three.</p>
<p>No school penalizes you for taking the SAT more than once. They usually take the highest score from your maximum of 3 SATs, they don't even care about the other ones (some even takes the highest score from different sections from different sittings, but that's rare) . Some people don't improve from taking it over again though, some lose points, but some do have huge gains. I went from 1960 to 2100 at my second sitting. You should check out the ACT too.</p>
<p>I personally don't know ANYONE who took the SAT only once. It's definitely okay to take it more than once.</p>
<p>If you do well on the other sections but get a poor score for the essay, you might take the SAT again and try to improve the essay score. If you managed to pull off a two-digit score for the essay and 2250 or higher overall (your PSAT score tells me that's quite possible), then I would advise against taking the test again.</p>
<p>It was my understanding that many colleges take the highest scores of each section, even from different tests and settings. My suggestion would be you should take the test at least twice, but not more than three times.</p>