I’m posting this with the hope of helping someone else. My son took his SAT back in December and totally bombed on the test. My father (his beloved grandfather) passed away the night before the test. Me my wife made the decision not to tell him to after he took the test. Sadly he got a text on the morning of the test offering condolences. She should have walked away from the test but he didn’t. Because of this his scores were horrible and we could not submit any of his applications. He took the test again in Feb and scored 410 points higher (his score is what we expected). We submitted applications for 2 reaches, 4 primaries and 2 safeties. We were getting denial letters within a week of submission. We were both disappointed and confused as to what was going on. Although he was not in the top 10% of his class he was in the top 25% and he has a good GPA. His reaches were for the top two state flagship programs while the others were regional schools. I knew something was wrong because the denials came back really fast and he easily qualified for all the schools other than the two reaches.
I pulled out the file I had made for him and with thru all of his applications and transcripts. First thing I noticed was his transcripts did not include his most recent SAT scores. Only the original scores that he bombed. I then found a incorrect entry for one of scores on a state mandated test. I still had that gut feeling that I had not found the real problem. I then went to the SAT site and found the culprit. When she scheduled his second test he did not select any schools to send his new test scores. He assumed they would be sent to the same schools as his first test but they were not. All those schools saw his first test scores and laughed while denying the application. It cost me 31$ to send those scores priority but the smile on my sons face was well worth it. Now I have to work the phones Monday morning to get those apps reviewed. The point of my post is review everything if you have a gut feeling that something is not right.