Its obviously natural to worry about SAT/ACT scores. It generally does have a big impact on the admissions process and therefore on a student’s future. But there are a whole host of reasons not to get too worked up about any particular test administration.

First, there is the obvious reason that SAT/ACT scores are only part of the picture that admissions people look at. Colleges are looking to create a diverse class and desperately want people who can bring a talent and passion for something to the campus. That something does not have to be pure academic achievement. It might surprise people to learn that at many of the Ivy League schools a full ¼ of admitted students are athletes. It might further surprise some to know that many, many people who achieve perfect scores on the SAT are denied admission to the top schools.

An additional consideration is that there are many schools, almost 1,000 actually, that don’t require SAT or ACT scores. There has been a movement away from these standardized tests and some of the schools that are SAT/ACT optional are actually top schools (especially small liberal arts colleges).

More importantly, however (and this is the real point of this post), most schools will take your highest scores on each section from different test administrations, so no one sitting really matters that much. College board actually publicizes what the score use policies are at almost every university, so you can see the exact policy for each school:

http://professionals.collegeboard.com/profdownload/sat-score-use-practices-list.pdf

What you will see if you look at this document is that most schools will take your highest section scores. There are a good number of schools that require you to report all of your scores, but that doesn’t mean they won’t superscore.   It just means that even though college board recently instituted a policy that allows students to send only certain scores from their score report, these colleges would still like to see all of the scores. In the end, most of these schools will likely superscore anyway since it is in their interest to do so. When it comes time to report the SAT and ACT scores of the applicants they admitted, it makes their school look better to be able to report the highest scores possible, since this gives the impression of being a more selective school with more demanding standards. The book A is for Admission by Michele Hernandez, which is probably the best and most authoritative book on the admissions process, has a very good explanation of this.

So the truth is that it is generally in your favor to take the SAT multiple times. You may not want to take it 5 times, but 3 or even 4 is fine. If you also factor in that you can take the ACT several times (since the tests are given by different companies and in the end you can just report the one that you scored higher on) you can literally take these tests 5, 6, even 7 times. Now, most kids certainly don’t want to subject themselves to that, but the point is that you can take the pressure off a little bit knowing that you can essentially erase a bad showing and that even if you only do well on one section during a particular administration you can just write off the bad scores, and focus your time on improving on those sections…you already have one score in the bag.

So go in there knowing that its not as though you only have one chance on the SAT.   If you include the ACT, you have many, many opportunities to do well and there is really no down side since any low score you get can essentially be wiped away by a higher score later on.