How bad is a 2290?

tokenadult
Sun, 17 Jun 2007 13:15:03 +0000

does it make a difference that the first two times I took it I didn’t study and I (probably) would study before taking it a third time?



That’s an issue any test-taker has to look at when deciding whether or not to retake. A test-taker who gets the score report and says, “Whew! I sure got lucky that time” may not want to retake. A test-taker who knows that the previous score was from a day when the test-taker was sick, or ill-prepared, or too busy with ECs to get enough rest, may have a reasonable expectation of beating the College Board’s statistics about what scores might be expected on a retake. So, yes, it makes a difference to YOU, in deciding what to do next, to know how prepared you were the last time.

But, on the other hand, there is really no way for a college admission officer to know who was well prepared on the previous occasion and who was not. That is, the college admission officers are largely going to ignore any possible inferences about who has the most “natural” or “unpracticed” ability to score well on the SAT. The colleges establish a blanket rule for how to treat multiple SAT scores for consistency and efficiency in evaluating applicants. As Oliver Wendell Holmes wrote about rule-making in general, “The life of the law has not been logic but experience.” Harvard’s experience has resulted in Harvard’s rule of “You may take tests more than once; we consider only your highest scores.” The rule treats the highest reported scores as authoritative, and sets aside speculation about why other, lower scores were reported. Most similarly selective colleges have exactly the same rule.

Good luck in your application. Because I note your interest in Harvard, I invite you to post in the thread, "[What is your favorite safety college?](http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/showthread.php?t=357223)" over on the Harvard Forum.