JS junior son got 710 on math, 750 on EBRW. For the schools he’s most interested in, he’d like to get the math score up at least another 30-40 points. He’s worried he won’t be able to improve his math score AND maintain that EBRW score in one sitting. Which is the shorter list? The schools that do superscore, or the schools that don’t superscore.
Never mind. I found this:
https://secure-media.collegeboard.org/digitalServices/pdf/professionals/sat-score-use-practices-participating-institutions.pdf
Thanks for sharing that, I had been asking myself the same question.
Do you really think it makes a difference?
As far as I know, almost all schools “superscore.” And they do that for two reasons: (1) They don’t care that much about small differences in the scores – much less than applicants think they do. (2) If they use superscores in their admissions process, they can report superscores on their Common Data Sets . . . . so their enrolled classes look a tad bit smarter, and they get a boost (or at least keep up with the inflation) in USNWR rankings. And the College Board has pushed that because . . . Hello!, lots of multiple test registrations from the subset of competitive students.
A handful of schools attempt to require people to submit all of their scores, but even they say they use only the superscores in making their decisions. I wonder if anyone has looked at whether this makes any difference? Does Yale, which requires that all scores be submitted, accept different people compared to Harvard, which doesn’t have that requirement, based on the number of times they took their tests and the variation in scores?
I doubt it.
I don’t believe they only use the super scores when there is a big variation. They use them in official calculations, but still I think the other scores influence reviewers. Someone who used to make admissions decisions at a top school–not Yale-- said that he was much more impressed by a perfect score on a first attempt than on a third.
Admissions decisions are made by people, not robots. Some people are influenced by earlier, lower scores. Not everyone sees Student A 1600 score March junior year on first and only attempt and Student B with 670 M and 750 E in March of Junior Year; 720 M and 800 E in June after Junior year and 800 M and 730 E in December of senior year as equal scores.
That’s not a reason to refrain from retaking, but yes, I think some schools ask for other scores because some reviewers take them into account.
@jonri I have seem pretty credible claims by people at very selective colleges that their procedures are such that admissions staffers who actually read the applications, grade them, and participate in decisions, are working off of an electronic (or paper) summary sheet that does not include any information about tests other than the highest score reported for each separate test. Nothing in the materials used by the decision-involved staff lets them know whether a 1600 SAT represents two 800s on the only test the applicant ever took or five different tests where there was an 800 in math on test #3 and an 800 verbal on test #5.
Well…it was about 10 years ago, but there was at least one school where they DID see them back then.
If you are looking at the top 25 or so, make sure you understand which schools require that all tests be sent – Yale, Stanford, Gtown, Rice, Penn, Cornell are some.
Thank you, @northwesty . That’s one of the reasons I like the linked chart. As I said, my son got a 710 (math) and 750 (EBRW) in first sitting. He will try again for a higher math score. Since it is likely he will get his highest scores on two different tests, we want to ensure that he includes a good number of superscore schools on his list.
UMich does not superscore.
I dislike superscoring. Happy to see UW-Madison uses highest sitting, not section like some of the lesser schools in the UW system per that report. One of the differentiators among higher scoring students is the fact that some can do well in BOTH parts at the same time. btw- a perfect score (2400 in son’s day) does not guarantee admission. Long story about this as he was supposed to retake the SAT Math 2 test after studying for it outside of class, sigh.