<p>Thats right Nightingale. Its obviously a personal judgement on how much better it has to be to go ahead and report it.</p>
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<p>Cheers…well it used to hold true for CR as well, but in puting the horse after the cart last night, I discovered that last year the females did outnumber the males at the upper scores in CR as well as in writing (this was expected and thought by some to be the reason for adding writing to the “core score”). However, the CR performance is a change from past years, and apparnetly atrributable to the dropping of analogies from the verbal section. For some reason men understood these better than women.</p>
<p>Anyway, if you cut and paste to excel and do the cumulative numbers, 22,700 men score at or above 750 in math, compared to 10,100 women. CR at or above 750 came out 12,400 men to 13,500 women. By comparison, in 2003 it was 12,888 for males and 12,226 for females.</p>
<p>Last year, the ration of females to males taking the test was about 8 to 7…785,000 females to 681,000 males. This is simliar to recent years.</p>
<p>“I would put someone who is bothered about a 760 in the “grade-conscious” category. Someone who achieved a 760 at first try, however, would be more impressive.”</p>
<p>But you can be both grade conscious and brilliant. :)</p>
<p>Say a kid scores in the in the 740-760 range math verbal the first time around… and then takes the SAT again. Would it be the perception of a non-Ivy adcom that this kid is fishing for an Ivy and that any other ap filed was for a safety. I mean if a kid with a fantastic initial score can basically write his own ticket at most non-Ivies, what is his motivation for taking the test again… except to compete in a pool of Ivy applicants. I just wonder does a Rhodes or Holy Cross look at this kid and say, "We’re going to lose him to Brown or Columbia anyway… let’s reach down a bit for the next kid with a terrific score but who has only taken the SAT1 once.</p>
<p>I have read complaints by bright kids stating they feel they were rejected or wait-listed because the admission committee viewed thier particular school as the applicants safety. In other words, the applicant, based on scores, was overqualified.</p>
<p>You can be both grade conscious and brilliant. Perfect SATs, in fact, are not a way of demonstrating brilliance unless the meaning of brilliance has been eroded. A student would be better off demonstrating brilliance in other ways through ECs, more advanced classes, etc…</p>
<p>This entire thread is based on the assumption that admissions officers have access to information on how many times an applicant took the SAT.</p>
<p>Do we know that this is true?</p>
<p>If a college claims that it only uses the highest scores on individual sections in the admissions process, then that college would have to ensure that those highest scores are the only scores the admissions officers see (to avoid letting subjective impressions based on anything other than the highest scores influence the process). Thus, one would assume that the college would have a member of the support staff transfer those highest scores to the applicant’s folder, and that the actual admissions officers would see only what’s written on the folder – they would not have access to the original College Board score report. </p>
<p>So how would the admissions officers know how many times the applicant had taken the SAT?</p>
<p>Yes, perfect SATs neither prove nor disprove brilliance. Retaking SATs several times to obtain a perfect score definitely proves something, but it isn’t brilliance. (It isn’t necessarily inconsistent with brilliance, either, but it doesn’t help the case much. “Brilliance”, by the way, is not the only quality worth having, and there is no field in which it is sufficient for success, standing alone.)</p>
<p>Nightingale: I love “gaming” admissions, too, but I sense that you are waaaaay overthinking this. People use the phrase “Tufts Syndrome” for the phenomenon you describe – highly qualified students being rejected at a second-tier school. I believe it exists. But I think it is a phenomenon of very limited scope, applicable to a very thin layer of schools that (1) are generally very selective and competitive, and therefore in direct competition with the Ivies and top LACs, and attractive to a similar population, but (2) know from experience their market position is such that they will “lose” almost all head-to-head competitions with those schools, and (3) do not generally engage in trying to entice top students with merit scholarships. And not even all of the schools that might be eligible do it.</p>
<p>Of course, if the application looks like it was thrown together, and has the wrong name for the school, and says “I want to go to a 5,000 student research university in a major east-coast city,” then maybe it will get dinged by a 2,500-student LAC in the South.</p>
<p>With Holy Cross, if you are really worried about this your kid has the option of not submitting his SAT scores at all. I’d like to see that! Find out whether they love him for himself, or for those gaudy scores!</p>
<p>I have been told that at most schools including the ivy league an administrator in the admissions office looks at the application and cross references it against the college board and/or ACT official report to see if the applicant was being truthful in what they reported. Then for the SAT they record the highest scores for critical reading, math and writing. The official report listing all the SAT scores including those taken on different dates goes into the applicants file. Yes, admission officers can look at the report if they want and make note of the fact if the applicant took it many times, but mostly they are interested in the highest score on each section</p>
<p>Yes, I know that. But what I don’t know is whether the people who make the actual admissions decisions see that score report or whether the only people who have access to it are clerical employees who do not actually participate in the decision-making process.</p>
<p>Edit: Collegebound 5 and I cross-posted. If what collegebound5 says is true, then the number of times that the applicant took the test or the score pattern could indeed be considered (which I consider highly unethical for colleges that say “we only consider the highest scores”).</p>
<p>it really depends on the college. Like I posted before, some colleges do have a support person enter the highest single scores on the outside of the applicant’s folder, but may include the full CB score report in the folder shoud the reader wish to go look to see other scores; however, given time pressures that is likely to happen only in rare cases. In other colleges, the support staff may take a large sharpie felt tip pen and circle the highest test scores on CB’s score report to make it easier for the application reader to immediately identify the top scores – in this case, the reader can also see if the report is pages long.</p>
<p>Nightingale: Sometimes we parents can overthink the process; everyone wants to rationalize why they don’t get into x & y colleges. IMO, test scores matter more for merit money, so a one-time retake of a mid-700 score doesn’t seem unusual. Schools like Emory & Rhodes throw full ride merit money at kids for the (single) reason of competing with HYPSM.</p>
<p>I have heard admission officers from Harvard and from other colleges say at public information meetings that it is FINE to take the SAT I more than once, because any applicant can have a bad day, and there is more than one SAT I test date per year just so that applicants can apply with the best score they can obtain. Taking the SAT I up to three times after eighth grade should not be a worry to anyone.</p>
<p>True. But a prof seeing a student reatking the SAT because s/he only scored 760 the first time may worry that same student will sit in his or her office arguing why an A- should really have been an A.</p>
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<p>I would not consider scoring 760 on the SAT “having a bad day.” If a student feels that s/he did less well than expected, then by all means that student should retake. But 760 is still within the scoring range. Adcoms usually go by tranches of 50 anyway, so that a 750 is not treated differently than an 800.</p>
<p>FWIW, it may not be entirely correct that ALL scores are printed on the SAT reports. Apparently, there is a limit of 6 scores. If this holds true, we may see students taking more than six tests and bump off the earlier scores. </p>
<p>Even for yours truly who will never cease to recommend taking the tests as many times as needed, I’d call that excessive. :)</p>
<p>Marion; I’m no admissions guru but, tkaing it this year, my son had a very good score the first time out, particularily for CR. (Thanks for the stats dadx. Interesting theory that the CB took away analogies ot give the girls a better shot. How many boys take the SAT test in a given year?) I think the fact that he took it once, from outside the US, will impress adcoms. Those scores demonstrate his natural intelligence. They demonstrate that he can read, compute and analyze with the best of the best. Pour a little fabulous teaching and peer pressure on him and he should be away.</p>
<p>He can prove his ‘endurance’ in other ways. This is a kid who is full on busy with independent projects. Making him take the test again is statistically stupid as he is unlikely to better either M or CR. </p>
<p>*Careful there, marite! You are going to pull your little finger out of joint!</p>
<p>Bluebayou is right in that it does depend on the college. It is true that some administrators even write the highest scores from each section on the outside of the folder.
The score report will go into the folder and most likely gets a quick glance by admission officers. Yes, a pattern might get their attention but the way I look at it however is that if the school really wants that applicant they are not going to look for an excuse not to take them. It is one thing if the applicant highest SAT scores on each sitting do not make the applicant competitive enough. But if the applicant took the SAT three times and some of those tests indicated scores that were not as high as others, but the highest scores in each section were competitive there is nothing to worry about.
What I do recommend is not taking the SAT more than three times. The reason is that by doing so the applicant might convey to admission officers that he or she does not have confidence in their scores. Taking it more than three times draws attention to the fact that the applicant is very concerned about the scores. After three times scores will probably not significantly increase anyway, and they could go down</p>
<p>The simple solution to Nightingales speculation (that multiple sittings by high scorers might cause certain schools to waitlist or reject the applicant because they see him as Ivy-focused) is this.</p>
<p>IF you belive this is an issue (I frankly do not–at least not related to number of retakes), just send get all of your testing required for those schools done early, and then remove them from the score report list when you take your second and third tries. That will put your mind at ease.</p>
<p>Even going back four decades, most people took the SAT twice. Three sittings is hardly overkill. Also, years ago, there was not such a “compression” at the top. Today, the 790-800 math category has as many kids as 760-780. There is more reason in applying to the elites to attempt to climb into the top group.</p>