Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums Identification, Testing & Assessment My 7th graders' SAT scores, save or purge?

Hi, I know there are a few threads discussing this topic, I read them all but still couldn't decide whether to save or discard.

DS's scores are CR550/M730/W500. He only focused on the math part trying to qualify for CTY SET, so he left blank all CR questions that required him to think. He also just casually wrote a few lines in the essay section so I know the CR and W scores didn't reflect his ability but that's okay.

I personally don't think this is a score worth saving, the math part is nice, but I wouldn't say it's great and the CR and W are not good at all.

So what do you think? Should I save this score? Will it hurt his college admission later? Any reason I should save this?

Please please help me as the deadline to request to keep the scores is approaching.

Thank you very much!

Mic

I don't see any reason to save it.

I'm curious about this as we will be in this kind of situation in the future (i.e. taking this type of test to get a good math score at a young age, with no expectation of good scores in other subjects).

I don't understand American college admission practices at all, but I just don't see why there should be any harm in keeping such a score. It should be self-explanatory what it is.

Superscoring means that they likely won't even be visible to colleges in the first place, and secondly, colleges won't see any scores in the first place if you don't SEND them.

So you could (if you later were concerned about it) do the ACT instead later on if you were sending scores to colleges and wanted to make sure that nobody ever saw them.

Don't save. While the math score is very good for your son's age (Congrats on qualifying for SET!), he will be able to repeat this or score higher when he is in HS. I was about to say that CR and W will also rise as he gets older, but then I remembered that there will be a new SAT format in a few years, so kids in his class will not be sending the 2400 SAT format scores to colleges.

I wouldn't really trust the superscoring thing - while the colleges do this, one sitting with much lower scores will look weird. If he takes the ACT, I understand that those scores are saved regardless of when he takes them. However, I don't think that you need to send the ACT scores prior to HS even if the colleges say to send all scores - they really don't care what you did in 7th grade.

I'm sure that selective colleges are smart enough not to hold 7th grade scores against applicants. I suggest saving the scores. Since the SAT is a low-ceiling test for the gifted, especially in math, his 7th grade math SAT scores may be more informative than his 11-12th grade ones, which will likely be be close to 800.

I assume that if you ask that the scores be saved that you can ask to delete them later. Can someone confirm this?

That's a bit harsh. He did better with minimal effort as a 7th grader on CR and W than most 11th and 12th graders do, while trying their best.

http://professionals.collegeboard.com/testing/sat-reasoning/scores/averages

No, he has to delete them now or not at all. I also don't think he will be able to send some scores without sending the whole record, but HK is closer to the applications process than I am, so she may be able to speak more authoritatively on that.

When you send SAT scores, you can pick and choose which test dates to send, but you cannot just send one subscore (math in this case).

Yeah-- it's before 9th grade, or not at all, on the deletion front.

But that is why I said that if he feels at all concerned about it-- the ACT won't have any record of 7th grade scores, and so that remains an option come college application time.

I also seriously doubt that a college is going to hold 6 year old scores against a stellar 12th grade applicant. If anything, the other way around.

It's also quite possible that those scores might be a ticket into more appropriate online coursework during high school (EPGY, etc.) so I would probably keep them, truthfully.