{"id":1010,"date":"2013-03-29t17:53:51","date_gmt":"2013-03-30t00:53:51","guid":{"rendered":"\/\/www.catharsisit.com\/sat\/?p=1010"},"modified":"2021-01-06t14:55:45","modified_gmt":"2021-01-06t22:55:45","slug":"sat-score-choice-vs-superscore","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"\/\/www.catharsisit.com\/hs\/sat\/sat-score-choice-vs-superscore\/","title":{"rendered":"sat score choice vs. superscore"},"content":{"rendered":"

to hear the college board tell it<\/a>, the sat score choice makes the sat less stressful and more balanced. while there\u2019s a grain of truth there, its far from the whole story. in reality, score choice isn\u2019t actually helpful. in fact, colleges don\u2019t want to you use it!<\/i><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

choosing your highest sat scores is irrelevant or worse for most schools<\/h2>\n

most schools don\u2019t look at every score you send. in fact, the vast majority of them only look at your highest scores on each section across all test dates. the college board has a list of what colleges’ policies are<\/a>, so find your schools on that and see for yourself.<\/p>\n

because there are computers sorting through the information, no human being will even see<\/i> your lower scores at most of those schools. there is no good reason <\/i>to keep any of your scores from those schools labeled as \u201chighest section\u201d in that list.<\/p>\n

in fact, since score choice only effects which dates of the test you send\u2014not which sections\u2014you might actually lower<\/i> your total score by choosing not to send the results of one test date. take me, for example. the first time i took the sat, i got a 700 on the math and a 710 on the verbal (this was right before they changed the format of the test to include writing). so i had a 1410 out of 1600 altogether. the second time i took the test, i got a 720 on the math and a 700 on the verbal. that was my higher overall score, at 1420.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

how the sat superscore comes into play<\/h2>\n

what if i\u2019d chosen to only send that score? well, it would have been lower than the \u201csuperscore\u201d from the highest sections that most colleges look at, which was 720 + 710 = 1430. it wasn\u2019t a big gap for me, but it could make a real difference if your scores are a little more varied. <\/p>\n

while colleges see all of the sat scores that you submit, most<\/i> colleges will look only at your top scores in each section – creating a high score or “superscore”. taking the sat twice can help you boost your superscore (especially if you’re stronger in math one day and stronger in verbal another.)<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

the schools that the sat score choice would be relevant for specifically ask you not<\/i> to use it<\/i><\/h2>\n

look at that list of college policies one more time. you\u2019ll notice that almost every school that doesn\u2019t calculate by highest section score asks for all scores.<\/i><\/p>\n

there isn\u2019t a single school on there that says \u201cwe\u2019ll consider every score you send, but you don\u2019t have to send them all.\u201d<\/p>\n

to be fair, you can choose the less honorable path and only send in the scores you want to schools that ask for all of them, and supposedly there\u2019s no way for them to tell. but, personally, if the school says that their admissions \u201crequire you to submit all sat scores,\u201d i\u2019d follow the rules.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

everybody has bad test days<\/h2>\n

although it\u2019s supposed to take some of the test stress away, score choice doesn\u2019t really do anything. yes, if you\u2019re sick on the day of the test, then that score won\u2019t affect your college applications\u2014as long as you take it again and get a better score next time. but that\u2019s always <\/i>been true. does anybody believe college admissions offices are so heartless? there have been systems for rooting out the \u201cbad days\u201d all along. score choice is one more unnecessary source of confusion, so make things easier on yourself. just send all<\/i> of your scores to all <\/i>of your schools. they\u2019ll know what to do with them. and if the sat has really got you shaking in your boots, then maybe do some serious pondering of sat vs act<\/a>, as that test may play to your strengths a bit more. rest assured that all the schools you’ll be applying to have a good grasp of act-sat score conversion. \ud83d\ude42<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

to hear the college board tell it, the sat score choice makes the sat less stressful and more balanced. while there\u2019s a grain of truth there, its far from the whole story. in reality, score choice isn\u2019t actually helpful. in fact, colleges don\u2019t want to you use it!   choosing your highest sat scores is […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":42,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[91],"tags":[],"ppma_author":[24883],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\nsat score choice vs. superscore<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"sat expert lucas verney-fink argues that sat score choice is almost always a useless option when sending scores to your schools. then he explains the sat superscore and how it can help you get into college.\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"\/\/www.catharsisit.com\/hs\/sat\/sat-score-choice-vs-superscore\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_us\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"sat score choice vs. superscore\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"sat expert lucas verney-fink argues that sat score choice is almost always a useless option when sending scores to your schools. then he explains the sat superscore and how it can help you get into college.\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"\/\/www.catharsisit.com\/hs\/sat\/sat-score-choice-vs-superscore\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"magoosh blog | high school\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:publisher\" content=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/magooshsat\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2013-03-30t00:53:51+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" content=\"2021-01-06t22:55:45+00:00\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"lucas fink\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:creator\" content=\"@magooshsat_act\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:site\" content=\"@magooshsat_act\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"lucas fink\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"3 minutes\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"article\",\"@id\":\"\/\/www.catharsisit.com\/hs\/sat\/sat-score-choice-vs-superscore\/#article\",\"ispartof\":{\"@id\":\"\/\/www.catharsisit.com\/hs\/sat\/sat-score-choice-vs-superscore\/\"},\"author\":{\"name\":\"lucas fink\",\"@id\":\"\/\/www.catharsisit.com\/hs\/#\/schema\/person\/c06e6a007d0b81117c00610ed88b6c7d\"},\"headline\":\"sat score choice vs. superscore\",\"datepublished\":\"2013-03-30t00:53:51+00:00\",\"datemodified\":\"2021-01-06t22:55:45+00:00\",\"mainentityofpage\":{\"@id\":\"\/\/www.catharsisit.com\/hs\/sat\/sat-score-choice-vs-superscore\/\"},\"wordcount\":685,\"commentcount\":2,\"publisher\":{\"@id\":\"\/\/www.catharsisit.com\/hs\/#organization\"},\"articlesection\":[\"sat\"],\"inlanguage\":\"en-us\",\"potentialaction\":[{\"@type\":\"commentaction\",\"name\":\"comment\",\"target\":[\"\/\/www.catharsisit.com\/hs\/sat\/sat-score-choice-vs-superscore\/#respond\"]}]},{\"@type\":\"webpage\",\"@id\":\"\/\/www.catharsisit.com\/hs\/sat\/sat-score-choice-vs-superscore\/\",\"url\":\"\/\/www.catharsisit.com\/hs\/sat\/sat-score-choice-vs-superscore\/\",\"name\":\"sat score choice vs. superscore\",\"ispartof\":{\"@id\":\"\/\/www.catharsisit.com\/hs\/#website\"},\"datepublished\":\"2013-03-30t00:53:51+00:00\",\"datemodified\":\"2021-01-06t22:55:45+00:00\",\"description\":\"sat expert lucas verney-fink argues that sat score choice is almost always a useless option when sending scores to your schools. then he explains the sat superscore and how it can help you get into college.\",\"breadcrumb\":{\"@id\":\"\/\/www.catharsisit.com\/hs\/sat\/sat-score-choice-vs-superscore\/#breadcrumb\"},\"inlanguage\":\"en-us\",\"potentialaction\":[{\"@type\":\"readaction\",\"target\":[\"\/\/www.catharsisit.com\/hs\/sat\/sat-score-choice-vs-superscore\/\"]}]},{\"@type\":\"breadcrumblist\",\"@id\":\"\/\/www.catharsisit.com\/hs\/sat\/sat-score-choice-vs-superscore\/#breadcrumb\",\"itemlistelement\":[{\"@type\":\"listitem\",\"position\":1,\"name\":\"home\",\"item\":\"\/\/www.catharsisit.com\/hs\/\"},{\"@type\":\"listitem\",\"position\":2,\"name\":\"sat score choice vs. superscore\"}]},{\"@type\":\"website\",\"@id\":\"\/\/www.catharsisit.com\/hs\/#website\",\"url\":\"\/\/www.catharsisit.com\/hs\/\",\"name\":\"magoosh blog | high school\",\"description\":\"act, sat, college admissions, life\",\"publisher\":{\"@id\":\"\/\/www.catharsisit.com\/hs\/#organization\"},\"potentialaction\":[{\"@type\":\"searchaction\",\"target\":{\"@type\":\"entrypoint\",\"urltemplate\":\"\/\/www.catharsisit.com\/hs\/?s={search_term_string}\"},\"query-input\":\"required name=search_term_string\"}],\"inlanguage\":\"en-us\"},{\"@type\":\"organization\",\"@id\":\"\/\/www.catharsisit.com\/hs\/#organization\",\"name\":\"magoosh\",\"url\":\"\/\/www.catharsisit.com\/hs\/\",\"logo\":{\"@type\":\"imageobject\",\"inlanguage\":\"en-us\",\"@id\":\"\/\/www.catharsisit.com\/hs\/#\/schema\/logo\/image\/\",\"url\":\"\/\/www.catharsisit.com\/hs\/files\/2019\/02\/magoosh-logo-purple-60h.png\",\"contenturl\":\"\/\/www.catharsisit.com\/hs\/files\/2019\/02\/magoosh-logo-purple-60h.png\",\"width\":265,\"height\":60,\"caption\":\"magoosh\"},\"image\":{\"@id\":\"\/\/www.catharsisit.com\/hs\/#\/schema\/logo\/image\/\"},\"sameas\":[\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/magooshsat\/\",\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/magooshsat_act\"]},{\"@type\":\"person\",\"@id\":\"\/\/www.catharsisit.com\/hs\/#\/schema\/person\/c06e6a007d0b81117c00610ed88b6c7d\",\"name\":\"lucas fink\",\"image\":{\"@type\":\"imageobject\",\"inlanguage\":\"en-us\",\"@id\":\"\/\/www.catharsisit.com\/hs\/#\/schema\/person\/image\/954453646a49363f2f0ca1ffbd5fefe1\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/e3ae2f54a947a41a6f47cf726d15c182?s=96&d=mm&r=g\",\"contenturl\":\"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/e3ae2f54a947a41a6f47cf726d15c182?s=96&d=mm&r=g\",\"caption\":\"lucas fink\"},\"description\":\"lucas is the teacher behind magoosh toefl. he\u2019s been teaching toefl preparation and more general english since 2009, and the sat since 2008. between his time at bard college and teaching abroad, he has studied japanese, czech, and korean. none of them come in handy, nowadays.\",\"knowsabout\":[\"toefl\",\"sat\",\"act\",\"data science\"],\"knowslanguage\":[\"english\",\"japanese\",\"czech\",\"korean\"],\"url\":\"\/\/www.catharsisit.com\/hs\/author\/lucasvf\/\"}]}<\/script>\n<!-- \/ yoast seo premium plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"sat score choice vs. superscore","description":"sat expert lucas verney-fink argues that sat score choice is almost always a useless option when sending scores to your schools. then he explains the sat superscore and how it can help you get into college.","robots":{"index":"index","follow":"follow","max-snippet":"max-snippet:-1","max-image-preview":"max-image-preview:large","max-video-preview":"max-video-preview:-1"},"canonical":"\/\/www.catharsisit.com\/hs\/sat\/sat-score-choice-vs-superscore\/","og_locale":"en_us","og_type":"article","og_title":"sat score choice vs. superscore","og_description":"sat expert lucas verney-fink argues that sat score choice is almost always a useless option when sending scores to your schools. then he explains the sat superscore and how it can help you get into college.","og_url":"\/\/www.catharsisit.com\/hs\/sat\/sat-score-choice-vs-superscore\/","og_site_name":"magoosh blog | high school","article_publisher":"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/magooshsat\/","article_published_time":"2013-03-30t00:53:51+00:00","article_modified_time":"2021-01-06t22:55:45+00:00","author":"lucas fink","twitter_card":"summary_large_image","twitter_creator":"@magooshsat_act","twitter_site":"@magooshsat_act","twitter_misc":{"written by":"lucas fink","est. reading time":"3 minutes"},"schema":{"@context":"https:\/\/schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"article","@id":"\/\/www.catharsisit.com\/hs\/sat\/sat-score-choice-vs-superscore\/#article","ispartof":{"@id":"\/\/www.catharsisit.com\/hs\/sat\/sat-score-choice-vs-superscore\/"},"author":{"name":"lucas fink","@id":"\/\/www.catharsisit.com\/hs\/#\/schema\/person\/c06e6a007d0b81117c00610ed88b6c7d"},"headline":"sat score choice vs. superscore","datepublished":"2013-03-30t00:53:51+00:00","datemodified":"2021-01-06t22:55:45+00:00","mainentityofpage":{"@id":"\/\/www.catharsisit.com\/hs\/sat\/sat-score-choice-vs-superscore\/"},"wordcount":685,"commentcount":2,"publisher":{"@id":"\/\/www.catharsisit.com\/hs\/#organization"},"articlesection":["sat"],"inlanguage":"en-us","potentialaction":[{"@type":"commentaction","name":"comment","target":["\/\/www.catharsisit.com\/hs\/sat\/sat-score-choice-vs-superscore\/#respond"]}]},{"@type":"webpage","@id":"\/\/www.catharsisit.com\/hs\/sat\/sat-score-choice-vs-superscore\/","url":"\/\/www.catharsisit.com\/hs\/sat\/sat-score-choice-vs-superscore\/","name":"sat score choice vs. superscore","ispartof":{"@id":"\/\/www.catharsisit.com\/hs\/#website"},"datepublished":"2013-03-30t00:53:51+00:00","datemodified":"2021-01-06t22:55:45+00:00","description":"sat expert lucas verney-fink argues that sat score choice is almost always a useless option when sending scores to your schools. then he explains the sat superscore and how it can help you get into college.","breadcrumb":{"@id":"\/\/www.catharsisit.com\/hs\/sat\/sat-score-choice-vs-superscore\/#breadcrumb"},"inlanguage":"en-us","potentialaction":[{"@type":"readaction","target":["\/\/www.catharsisit.com\/hs\/sat\/sat-score-choice-vs-superscore\/"]}]},{"@type":"breadcrumblist","@id":"\/\/www.catharsisit.com\/hs\/sat\/sat-score-choice-vs-superscore\/#breadcrumb","itemlistelement":[{"@type":"listitem","position":1,"name":"home","item":"\/\/www.catharsisit.com\/hs\/"},{"@type":"listitem","position":2,"name":"sat score choice vs. superscore"}]},{"@type":"website","@id":"\/\/www.catharsisit.com\/hs\/#website","url":"\/\/www.catharsisit.com\/hs\/","name":"magoosh blog | high school","description":"act, sat, college admissions, life","publisher":{"@id":"\/\/www.catharsisit.com\/hs\/#organization"},"potentialaction":[{"@type":"searchaction","target":{"@type":"entrypoint","urltemplate":"\/\/www.catharsisit.com\/hs\/?s={search_term_string}"},"query-input":"required name=search_term_string"}],"inlanguage":"en-us"},{"@type":"organization","@id":"\/\/www.catharsisit.com\/hs\/#organization","name":"magoosh","url":"\/\/www.catharsisit.com\/hs\/","logo":{"@type":"imageobject","inlanguage":"en-us","@id":"\/\/www.catharsisit.com\/hs\/#\/schema\/logo\/image\/","url":"\/\/www.catharsisit.com\/hs\/files\/2019\/02\/magoosh-logo-purple-60h.png","contenturl":"\/\/www.catharsisit.com\/hs\/files\/2019\/02\/magoosh-logo-purple-60h.png","width":265,"height":60,"caption":"magoosh"},"image":{"@id":"\/\/www.catharsisit.com\/hs\/#\/schema\/logo\/image\/"},"sameas":["https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/magooshsat\/","https:\/\/twitter.com\/magooshsat_act"]},{"@type":"person","@id":"\/\/www.catharsisit.com\/hs\/#\/schema\/person\/c06e6a007d0b81117c00610ed88b6c7d","name":"lucas fink","image":{"@type":"imageobject","inlanguage":"en-us","@id":"\/\/www.catharsisit.com\/hs\/#\/schema\/person\/image\/954453646a49363f2f0ca1ffbd5fefe1","url":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/e3ae2f54a947a41a6f47cf726d15c182?s=96&d=mm&r=g","contenturl":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/e3ae2f54a947a41a6f47cf726d15c182?s=96&d=mm&r=g","caption":"lucas fink"},"description":"lucas is the teacher behind magoosh toefl. he\u2019s been teaching toefl preparation and more general english since 2009, and the sat since 2008. between his time at bard college and teaching abroad, he has studied japanese, czech, and korean. none of them come in handy, nowadays.","knowsabout":["toefl","sat","act","data science"],"knowslanguage":["english","japanese","czech","korean"],"url":"\/\/www.catharsisit.com\/hs\/author\/lucasvf\/"}]}},"authors":[{"term_id":24883,"user_id":42,"is_guest":0,"slug":"lucasvf","display_name":"lucas fink","avatar_url":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/e3ae2f54a947a41a6f47cf726d15c182?s=96&d=mm&r=g","user_url":"","last_name":"fink","first_name":"lucas","description":"lucas is the teacher behind magoosh toefl. he\u2019s been teaching toefl preparation and more general english since 2009, and the sat since 2008. between his time at bard college and teaching abroad, he has studied japanese, czech, and korean. none of them come in handy, nowadays."}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"\/\/www.catharsisit.com\/hs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1010"}],"collection":[{"href":"\/\/www.catharsisit.com\/hs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"\/\/www.catharsisit.com\/hs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"\/\/www.catharsisit.com\/hs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/42"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"\/\/www.catharsisit.com\/hs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1010"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"\/\/www.catharsisit.com\/hs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1010\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"\/\/www.catharsisit.com\/hs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1010"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"\/\/www.catharsisit.com\/hs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1010"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"\/\/www.catharsisit.com\/hs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1010"},{"taxonomy":"author","embeddable":true,"href":"\/\/www.catharsisit.com\/hs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/ppma_author?post=1010"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}