retake SAT's or not???

lotf629
Wed, 20 Jun 2007 23:53:23 +0000

Most of the time, when I see a thread like this, I think, “Well, it depends. . .”

In this case, it doesn’t depend. Your son should retake. He has two fantastic scores (congratulations to you and him!) and one sub-median score (I believe). Even if 560 is not actually below the median, it is still quite low relative to his other excellent scores.

In response to your specific question: Sometimes, only one or two people see the full score report. Those people record the important data (often the superscore data) somewhere prominent in the student’s file. Later, if the student is right on the line between admission and rejection, it’s possible that everything in the file will be scrutinized closely. But I strongly doubt that your son’s W and CR scores will drop enough that he will hurt his chances. On the other hand, his current math score is definitely a negative.

And he’s in luck! The math is easy to study for. Get a decent tutor if you like, have him do a bunch of practice problems, and let him retake. Definitely worth the trouble.