<p>How can an applicant know if a college is looking at best section or best sitting on the SATs? </p>
<p>DD has taken it twice now and she's pretty happy with her math from last year and her CR and W from this year. But her math went down substantially at this sitting. If the school looks at sections she looks pretty good, if they only look at best sitting, she looks like she's much stronger in English than in math. </p>
<p>She would love to be able to call it a day on SATs but she'll try it one more time in the fall (when she'll be a senior) if most colleges look at a single sitting.</p>
<p>An applicant knows by looking it up on the college's Web site. In general, top private elite colleges consider scores section by section, and at least some huge state universities consider scores on the basis of each sitting for the test. Usually each college's admission office Web site makes clear what the college's procedure is.</p>
<p>I've looked all over the websites for her top two schools and I just can't find it. I was thinking it would be on the admissions page where they talk about SAT requirements, but maybe it's somewhere else?</p>
<p>This came up before and people provided a number of schools. It is difficult to find on sites but generally can be. From the partial list I kept before (a few years old and accuracy never certain as it relied on what others reported): for the most part, schools listed in top 50 list of Universites by US News use highest subscores from multiple tests, likewise the top 25 of LAC's. The exceptions from those, which use that test with highest composite score and ignore other tests, are all UC's, Mich, UIUC, UChicago, UFlorida, UWisconsin. At Middlebury, you have the option of submitting the ACT, the SAT, or three SAT IIs, e.g., you can submit IIs only without SAT. Also UTexas, admits close to 75% of its class based on class rank only because that many of the applicants are residents in upper 10% of their class and UTexas is required by law to accept them regardless of test score; however, it does use test scores to determine whether you will be admitted to major of your choice. Rose-Hulman, listed only in top engineering schools that do not have a Ph.D program (and usually listed there as No. 1) is a rare college that actually combines subscores from both ACT and SAT -- it uses only English and Math section of ACT and CR and Math section of SAT and if your comparative score for ACT English is higher than CR for SAT it will use that and vice versa, and same for comparative scores on math sections.</p>
<p>Daughter's GC told us most private universities take the highest section score from each sitting while most publics take score from one sitting as a rule of thumb.</p>
<p>It is hard to find specific information on websites, but I don't think it's universally true that public universities take the highest sitting. </p>
<p>From the UNC-Chapel Hill site: "We'll use your highest verbal, math, and writing score on the SAT OR your highest composite and writing score on the ACT. Example: Your 1st SAT - Math=600; Verbal=700; Writing=620. Your 2nd SAT - Math=650; Verbal=620; Writing=710. We'll use: Math=650; Verbal=700; Writing=710."</p>
<p>I think it's best just to e-mail the admissions office and ask them.</p>
<p>My understanding is that the college board sends ALL of the scores. Most school apps ask you to give your best score on each section, and they can be from dif sittings.</p>
<p>Agree w/ samom, most privates take the best from east section, but it depends on the public; ex. Penn State takes the best sitting while Pitt takes the highest from each section.</p>