Will this look really bad?

Parents Social Lounge
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<p>I'm applying to William and Mary and JMU. </p>

<p>I just got a copy of my transcript today and realized it has both my ACT and SAT scores on it.</p>

<p>I took both tests to see which worked better for me, and the ACT won out, so I had my ACT scores sent to my college list.</p>

<p>My SAT score is a good 300 points below what my ACT equivalent would be, and I have to wonder...will that negatively impact the way adcoms perceive me?</p>

<p>Of course, the colleges say they "look at the highest scores," but...will they really just ignore my awful SAT score or...not?</p>

<hr>

<p>On another note, I have another fear.</p>

<p>I look at my SAT/ACT Math scores and then compare them to my actual Math grades, and the only thing it makes think is: "this looks like grade inflation."</p>

<p>I might be overreacting, but I'm still nervous.</p>

<p>There is no grade inflation in my school. My math classes were plenty difficult and plenty of people failed them. I wasn't one of those people.</p>

<p>I consistently have A's in math, but I have one major problem with math. </p>

<p>I can't do it quickly to save my life. </p>

<p>And it shows. Bad.</p>

<p>While I have earned A's in math classes, my ACT/SAT scores for math are considerably lower than what you think they would be coming from someone with such high grades.</p>

<p>And I don't really know what to do about it. I've tried to practice and learn tricks to help me do math faster, but to no avail. </p>

<p>This was a major reason I didn't take AP Calc AB (online). All the tests and quizzes, and ultimately, the AP Exam is strictly timed. I'd never do it...It'd be a waste of $86, whereas I could take it as a real college course with (hopefully) more lax time constraints and be much more likely to succeed.</p>

<p>I feel like this is becoming a serious handicap for me. </p>

<p>And I'm afraid my lack of ability in the standardized test area will invalidate my math grades in the eyes of the adcoms.</p>

<p>Am I overreacting or do I have a sound reason to be concerned?</p>

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<p>You can ask your HS to send a copy of your transcript without the score reports. Maybe no concern seeing both, but why risk it?</p>

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<p>Yeah…I don’t think they’d let me take components off of it. ><</p>

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<p>Don’t guess, ask. At my son’s school the form to request transcipts asks if ACT or SAT scores should be included.</p>

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<p>Uh…okay…I’ll check.</p>

<p>(Wow, your son’s school has a form…to request transcript forms?..Gee, I just say "Hey Ms. ______, can you send my transcript to so and so school?)</p>

<p>(And can anyone possibly address my second problem?)</p>

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<p>You should be able to remove sat scores from form. Its easy.</p>

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<p>Could you ask your math teacher to write a recommendation or just a letter explaining your particular qualities and to vouch for the difficulty of the classes you took?</p>

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<p>Great suggestion from mousegray - the math teacher can give perspective to the grade/ACT disconnect. </p>

<p>Some high schools are surprisingly stubborn about removing the SAT score from the transcript. I personally don’t think that the scores have any place there at all. Administrators and GCs should be aware that it might impose a disadvantage on their students. Our (usually very accommodating) GC waffled on this point when I asked her if my ds’ scores would be removed upon request; she finally agreed, but very reluctantly. As it happened, we didn’t need to have them removed - but we wanted to know ahead of time that they would be, if we requested it.</p>

<p>My experience is that many schools have a horror of extending “special treatment” to any individual. If your school has always included the scores on the transcript, they may be difficult about removing them. I’d start by asking the GC personally (and very politely). If the answer is no, or if your concerns are pooh-poohed, I wouldn’t lose my cool - but I’d write an email to the GC and the principal outlining the conversation, stating your concerns (particularly that you gave no permission for your scores to be posted on your transcript), and asking for their reconsideration. Then see where it goes from there.</p>

<p>Yes, colleges say they only look at the best scores. But with so many thousands of strong applicants, why give the adcoms a reason to reject?</p>

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<p>Especially now with score choice, I don’t think it’s the high school’s place to include SAT scores on the transcript. After we saw this happen with our son, I made sure D checked “no” on the registration form where it asked if you wanted the scores sent to your high school. But imagine our shock when we saw D’s transcripts just recently, and the only SAT scores they included were from a test taken in 7th grade for CTY!! (Those had to be sent to the school for G&T placement, but they went to the middle school!) What if some tired admission person looks at that quickly and just dismisses the application?</p>

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<p>"(Wow, your son’s school has a form…to request transcript forms?..Gee, I just say “Hey Ms. ______, can you send my transcript to so and so school?)”</p>

<p>haha… Ms. ____ at our school would have no idea who my son IS! He’s just one of 600 in his graduating class. Thank God there are forms!</p>

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<p>The College Board site, in the section for schools, discourages including SAT scores on transcripts. It is a violation of privacy. There is no score choice if schools continue to plaster all scores on transcripts. Students are supposed to give permission for who gets those scores. </p>

<p>School systems track their student SAT scores. What is going to happen is that the savvier students are not going to put high school codes on their SAT registration forms, and schools won’t be getting those student scores anymore for their statistics.</p>

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<p>Having sat through quite a few college adcoms introductory talks now, one thing that all of them seem to have in common is the answer to ‘what scores should I send in’. Everyone so far has answered- ‘we want to look at your best work, we don’t care about your worst, so if you take the SAT 5 times and send us all of the scores, we will select the best score out of the 5 for each test section and put them together for your final best score.’ So I wouldn’t worry about your first question. About the second, I agree, the best answer is a letter from a math teacher saying that you have good grades because you arrive at the correct answer through methodical reasoning, but you do not do it quickly. Are you considering a math-oriented career? If not, I would think that should be good enough.</p>

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<p>“Yeah…I don’t think they’d let me take components off of it.”</p>

<p>Ahhh Rixs, and you were doing so well. You got a copy of your transcript, you checked it carefully, you noted something that you didn’t expect, you determined that the unexpected item might compromise your college applications, and you asked CC membership whether your assessment was correct. All that is really, really good. But unless you turn that good work into action, it’s all for naught. You really need to work with your school offices to get those SAT scores removed. Best of luck to you in your college career!</p>

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<p>As Deja mentioned above: </p>

<p>[Score</a> Choice - New SAT Score-Reporting Policy](<a href=“http://professionals.collegeboard.com/testing/sat-reasoning/scores/policy]Score”>http://professionals.collegeboard.com/testing/sat-reasoning/scores/policy)</p>

<p>Q: Should SAT scores be reported on high school transcripts? </p>

<p>A: The SAT Program recommends that schools do not place SAT scores on students’ high school transcripts that are sent to colleges. Schools should encourage students to send official score reports to colleges. If a school still decides to send scores on a transcript, the SAT Program recommends that a school receive official consent from the student, parent or guardian before doing so. </p>

<p>Our school only asked permission to send AP scores on the transcript but asked nothing about SAT scores. I would simply go to guidance and assert that you do not want your scores included on the transcript. It should not be a big deal to remove them. Wave the CB suggested policy at them if needed. Have your parents go in. There’s no harm in asking. </p>

<p>It sounds like your school is dealing with some particular challenges in terms of instruction from looking at your other posts (Calculus, Physics and a few other classes appear to be offered only online?). I am guessing you are also from a rural area in VA? That will make it a lot easier at JMU than say if you were from NoVa. It looks as if you’ve studied Chinese? I think they will be a great deal more interested in that than an SAT that didn’t go as well as it could.</p>

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<p>@sabaray- Yeah, I go to a very rural school in eastern VA. </p>

<p>We don’t have the high standards that schools from NoVA do.</p>

<p>The regular math progression ends at Algebra II senior year. The smart kids take Pre-Calc Junior year and that’s it…or it was (last year). Now they offer AP Calc (online). </p>

<p>[Same with Science. My HS progression was Academic Earth Science, Academic Bio, Chemistry (which was the Junior year academic science), and then regular Enviro (which has been “seniors relax” class in lieu of any higher course offerings…until this year…with the coming of AP Physics B online).]</p>

<p>(As far as I know…no one is taking either Physics or Calc this year. No one was willing to be the first to jump from regular level classes all three years of Math/Science to AP level Physics and Calc…)</p>

<p>Personally, I would be taking Calc this year if it was offered as a regular level class, but I don’t want to do an AP I know I’ll fail at. </p>

<p>I designed my whole high school career at doing what I wanted while still maintaining the highest level of offered core classes in my regular high school line up…until this year, where my choices were Physics B online and Calc AB online…</p>

<p>I chose not to participate in Governor’s school because the only available school was Math/Science oriented and would have prevented me from taking Chinese and Japanese.</p>

<p>Had I taken Governor’s School, I would be the Valedictorian instead of ranked 5. Do I regret it? No. I wouldn’t sacrifice my experience in Japanese or Chinese for anything.</p>

<p>Anyway, so I should get a Math teacher recommendation, you think? Sounds like a good idea. </p>

<p>(Though I’m a bit worried. She was miffed last year that I, her top Pre-Calc student, wasn’t moving on to AP Calc [even though she knows I’m slow at math])</p>

<p>I’ll ask my GC to not report my SAT scores. -makes note- </p>

<p>Actually, I’m not even sure the common app transcript section for GC’s asks for it, and that’s what I used for W&M, but I’ll look on the download copy to check just in case. </p>

<p>I was just worried about the transcripts I’d need mailed, since they’re the same ones she gives me printed (which has my SAT scores on it). Meh, I’ll check and see before I raise the issue just to make sure.</p>

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<p>When I saw PSAT scores on our HS transcripts, I raised a fuss. I was told there was nothing I could do to remove them. I told a friend, who is a lawyer and has a kid in the school – and she said this is a privacy issue and the school cannot have this material on a transcript if a student wants it removed. She called the principal, subtlety implied that this is something the school could be sued over – and the principal immediately told the guidance department to remove the information. It was removed.</p>

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<p>I would strongly recommend that you have your guidance counselor, in writing her/his letter of recommendation for you, provide an explanation about how you’re good at math but you’re slow and how your slowness is reflected in your SAT and ACT scores. That’s a really important point for your GC to make. The same was true for our son, and we had his GC state that in the letter. YOU cannot make the case because it will sound like you’re making excuses. Either your GC should or if she/he doesn’t write a letter of recommendation, at least your last math teacher should explain in a letter how you do math. Good luck!</p>