<p>Help! My daughter is driving me crazy! She just received her SAT scores and did worse than the first time. She has applied ED to Amherst. First go round was 2170 this time 2030. OUCH! I keep telling her that they will only use her highest scores anyway; is that correct? Will they somehow psychologically look at her two scores and hold it against her in the admission process. She has great SAT II’s (Bio 750 and math IIc 720), and has danced ballet for ten years and will continue in college. She wishes to major in Biology or neuroscience. Any feedback would be greatly appreciated!</p>
<p>My son got a 2150 on the March SAT. He decided not to retake. The score sheet had some statistics like “of people with this score who retook the exam, approximately 40% scored higher, 45% scored lower, and 15% scored the same.” These aren’t the exact numbers, but my point is that when he saw that he was more likely to score the same or LOWER on a retake, and since he’d reached his goal of 2100+, he thought he’d just be satisfied and not go through the stress of another test. A 40% chance of increasing his score just wasn’t worth it. If these stats are accurate, the odds are actually against increasing your score with retakes at this level. This probably doesn’t make you feel better, but your daughter is in good company. I don’t think adcoms will hold it against her. They’ll look at her highest score.</p>
<p>Don’t know about Amherst, but some colleges actually have a clerk in the admissions office who fills out an info sheet for each applicant and transcribes the best scores from the college board score reports onto a sheet that goes to the admissions officer, so the decision maker actually only sees the best scores and has no idea what other scores were earned or even if the scores being viewed came from a single test date. So, feed that story to your daughter and stick to it! :)</p>
<p>My S had widely different SAT scores (was sick first time he took it.) Went from 1370 to 1550. Got into (and graduated from) Penn, who said they only look at highest scores. (He also got a 33 ACT – I don’t know how that translates, and 750, 770, and 800 on physics, math, and writing SAT IIs). I think that even if they noted the discrepancy, the fact that the other scores, and HS grades, “defended” his higher scores, made the lower score moot. I think that will also happen with your D. I suspect this happens more often than not, to many people, for many different reasons, and that is why schools look at the whole application for clues to what is accurate.</p>
<p>So I really do think your D doesn’t have anything to worry about.</p>