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

Are you sure about this? I thought that they had gotten rid of the ability to pick and choose test dates to send. My daughter is only 10, though, so I haven't looked into it too much.

I am confused, I thought you only sent the records you wanted to colleges. For my daughters ACT we only sent the colleges the grades we wanted them to see not the whole record.

This is illuminating, it is a list of what institutes require what scores to be sent.

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

Given that some schools do require all scores sent, I might delete his test scores. Although I'm not sure this would look bad to have this score as a 7th grader. Depends on if you are going to want this score to get him admitted into something different next year.

My understanding is that many of the programs that you might use the SAT to qualify for before high school are understanding of this problem, and will take a photocopy of the official score report. It's worth calling and asking, anyway.

Elizabeth, I am certain. Last year, my eldest was a senior in HS. I sent her SAT scores and you could definitely choose which test dates to send, but could not choose to send just certain subscores.

For the ACT, it is the same. You can send the test dates you want colleges to see, but you can't mix and match your subscores from different dates. A few colleges do superscore the ACT, but that is on them - you can't send selected scores to reflect a superscore.

That being said, some colleges do require all scores to be sent. There has been discussion on this elsewhere, but the college may be able to see that you took the SAT on a certain date, but did not provide a score (as in a test date with blank score section on the report).

If he qualified for SET, he used the code to send his scores to CTY. They are "on record" somewhere. I recall a login for CTY and I could see my kids' scores after College Board had wiped them out.

Sorry, I still vote wipe them out. His score in HS will be fine. Eldest had a friend that scored 2100+ in 7th grade. Didn't keep his scores and ended up with two perfect sections, other near perfect on his HS SAT.

I must have been remembering that some colleges require all scores.

I still think you should delete them. He will be able to match or beat that math score again (and if he can't, do you really want him in a college that requires a high score?), and he can bring the other two up in the future.

Terry Tao scored 760 on Math SAT when 8yo.

Are some of you saying that a score like that should be deleted.

The age (or grade) matters immensely.

Are some of you saying that college admissions officiers are so profoundly intellectually impaired that they would only consider the actual score as relevant and disregard when it was taken.

I understand that a more recent result can confirm that a kid has stayed on track, but surely a 700 in grade 7 is far more impressive than an 800 in grade 11.

If you look at my post. It is a LINK to the College Board page detailing what particular universities require. It seems some want all the scores, and some only the top scores, while others let you superscore. It is not the College Board that decides this but different university admissions office. And those requirements may quite likely change particularly with the "NEW" SAT being implemented.

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

I thought about this some more. Selective colleges won't reject applicants based on mediocre 7th grade scores, I assume, but there is another consideration. Innumerable articles have (wrongly) stated that "privileged" students do well on the SAT in 11th-12th grade because of expensive test prep. Seeing that my son had a high SAT math score before age 10 and an even higher score at age 17 could be interpreted as his being prepped for the SAT for more than 7 years. (It's actually things like the AMC that we are preparing him for.)

If I were an admissions officer I would keep in mind the studies of the predictive power of high 7th grade SAT scores
(for example "SAT Exam, Taken at Age 13, Can Predict Career Path of Gifted", by Matthew Keenan - September 7, 2007, http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=newsarchive&sid=aCVwvI2U53.Q&refer=us ) and prefer candidates with early high scores, other things being equal. But my views are not universally shared .

I'll present the pros and cons to my son before 9th grade and let him decide, but I'd still lean toward keeping the scores.

An even BETTER reason to keep them is the possibility that the "new" SAT may well be even less rigorous than the current incarnation.

I'd keep them, since I see that as a VERY distinct possibility. That writing score may be particularly useful, depending on what he did with the essay-- that won't exist in another three years.

Like Bostonian, however, I realize that my views may not be shared even by elite college AdComs.

Sorry, I still vote to let them disappear from the College Board records. While the colleges may understand that the 7th grade score is very good, there are very few middle school achievements worth mentioning on a college application. Middle kid's Mathcounts Chapter level trophy - not worthy of mention. My kids' friend that qualified for USAMO prior to HS - worthy.

Also, the 7th grade score only speaks to a kid's potential. Colleges want to see that he did something with that potential - not just that he is a PG kid who can achieve great scores at a young age. I'm not saying that the OP's kid won't achieve great things - he very well may - but I know of kids who had very high scores on 7th grade SATs, EXPLORE, etc. but then didn't do much in HS with that potential. It hurt in college admissions.