Some colleges require that all testing results be sent to them from College Board and/or ACT. If a student is not requesting superscoring, why would the college want to see all the reports of every time the student took the test?
ACT, for example, requires payment for each test that is reported. DD took it twice and I don’t understand why we should have to pay for an earlier test to be reported that we are not interested in having them consider.
Also, it seems to not be in the college’s best interest either in that students will end up reporting lower scores that they would not otherwise report. For example, DD did not do as well on the SAT (about 200 points lower than her PSAT would suggest) as she did on ACT. However, she did not bother redoing the SAT as she had a great ACT score. Now as we are looking at sending SAT2 scores to colleges, some of them are requesting all SAT scores be sent. If she is admitted, why would they want to have her lower SAT scores on their stats rather than just the high ACT?
So, why do they want to have it all reported when it seems to be in neither side’s interest?
I don’t think the school would include your DD’s lower SAT in their reported profile. I think the school just PICKS the highest one and uses that. They’re not obligated to include both sets in their data.
One reason why some schools want all tests sent is because there is a belief that lower income students don’t have the ability to take tests multiple times, while more affluent students do. So, those schools want to know whether one (affluent) student’s 2250 is the result of multiple takes…or not. A school may be less impressed by a 2250 achieved after 5 retakes over another student’s 2170 who only took the test one time.
I have always wondered about this. DS took SAT once & ACT once. Fortunately, it was all that was needed. But I beleive I have read, on CC, that it doesn’t hurt the student if they take the tests multiple times trying for hgihest scores. Or would it depend on the school?
I think that it’s always for someone’s best. It really doesn’t hurt for someone to take the SAT four, five, six times as long as he/she gets a good score. To this day there hasn’t been any tangible proof or a person to present as a model for rejection based on his prolific number of sittings. Whenever the college wants scores, I always advocate to send all of my scores so that even if they don’t superscore, they still at least consider (in their mind) the highest sections not composite scores from all of what they have. At the end, it really can only help.
I’d be surprised if a school viewed a 2200 from one sitting and 2200 as the highest of 5 sitting the same. Students making careers out of college entry credentials would be viewed upon differently-I would think.
I think you can safely assume that schools report only the student’s highest scores. It’s in their self-interest to do so, and they’re under no obligation to do otherwise.
Schools that require all scores generally say they want to get as complete a picture of the applicant as possible. That seems reasonable, and from that perspective, a complete standardized test score history is certainly more revealing than a report that includes only cherry-picked best scores. Many of these schools say the lower scores won’t hurt the applicant because they’ll rely on the student’s best scores, but that seems disingenuous to me; if that were the case, they’d have no reason to require all the scores. They may try to give the applicant the benefit of the doubt by emphasizing the best scores, but I think inevitably they’re going to consider whether those best scores came in a single sitting, or are part of a consistent pattern of similar scores, or came only at the end of a multi-year process of test prep and re-takes to try to boost less impressive scores—and all that information will be right there in front of them. That will work to the advantage of some applicants and to the disadvantage of others. It would tend to erase some of the advantage that otherwise might be gained by applicants who are affluent enough to pay for expensive test prep courses and multiple test sittings, and sufficiently savvy to the college admissions game to have spent years burnishing the applicant’s stats and credentials. That’s not such a bad thing, IMO. On the other hand, it will also tend to erase some of the advantage that otherwise might be gained by applicants who earned top scores through diligence and hard work rather than natural giftedness or a knack for standardized test-taking. Personally, I’d be more inclined to reward the hard workers. Then again, maybe some college admissions committees will see it the way I do. The most selective colleges aren’t particularly interested in the “brilliant slacker” who easily earns top test scores in a single sitting but whose grades, HS curriculum, and ECs don’t scream out “diligence” and “effort” and “aiming high” and “achievement” commensurate with the potential suggested by the test scores.
That is true, @movemetoo, but I think it’s a misuse of “diligence and dedication” to focus on a single data point for admission.Why not be more diligent about something you feel passionate about?
I can see taking the test a few times if you truly scored below what your other stats (grades, essays, recs) would indicate is your potential, but I know plenty of kids who take the thing multiple times to get their 2240 up over 2300. That seems like a misapplication of their dedication.
I think it’s fair to say that most college admissions officers would view an applicant taking the same test three or four times to get an additional 50 points as raising questions about the applicant’s values and judgment.
It’s one thing to dedicate yourself to honing your skill at something real, like sports, or music, or acting in a play, or even really learning some subject matter. It’s quite another thing to become an expert at taking a test that essentially is used only for college admissions, and isn’t accorded that much weight there. High test scores aren’t real achievement, and may indicate that the applicant has a skewed idea of what real achievement is.
I’m referring more to blue-collar high school kids or ESL kids who are determined to raise their scores, as opposed advantaged kids with tons of prep classes trying to raise it a few points each time!
@8bagels I’m surprised too. Especially since they can cherry pick the scores that they use for reporting of admitted and accepted students. Perhaps if ACT changed their policy and didn’t charge extra for each test sent, they would do that.
“It is [college]s’ longstanding admissions policy to use a student’s highest score for each section of the SAT (Critical Reasoning, Math and Writing) regardless of the test date. Accordingly, [college] asks applicants to submit all SAT testing from all test dates. The university will continue to use the highest combination of SAT section score (from one or multiple test dates) in rendering each admission decision…Because our database already selects the highest sectional score for inclusion in the application file, “score choice” for [college] is redundant.”
I object if the school states that it will only consider highest scores, but insists on the applicant sending them all. If a school is engaging in some of the activities mentioned up-thread (penalizing applicants who take multiple tests) then they are not, in fact, looking only at the highest scores, and should be transparent about it.
The admissions officers I heard speak directly on the subject, had no issues with kids taking the test two or three times. A couple said if it was more than that they might look at other parts of the application and read between the lines. Did the student seem overly focused on grades? Did they really have nothing better to do on a Saturday morning? If you didn’t look like an OCD grade-grubber taking it four times - would not be a big deal, but if you were trying to get a 2300 to a 2400, it would probably be a slight negative.
Colleges have no way of enforcing these rules when it comes to the ACT. Even if they ask for all scores, you could just send your highest score and colleges would have no way of knowing that you even took it on other dates.
So are people saying that if the college has both SAT and ACT results on a student, the college can choose to report only one of the two in their statistics?