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.

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.

Here's a question. How (and when) can you use SAT to show a kid is an 99.9th %ile? Or 99.99th %ile?

What is SET?

Thank you everybody for your advices!!! It's so helpful to hear from so many different perspectives! The only reason I would want to keep the scores is for any programs or camps before high school that require SAT scores to qualify. I would not rely on this for college admission. My husband wants to save purely for sentimental reasons! 😉

I still can't decide but leaning towards purge.

I will come back and let everybody know my decision.
Thank you so very very much!!!

I'm not sure about the decimals but the score report tells you the percentile.
730 in this test is 96%.

That might be for all test takers. But this
http://www.davidsongifted.org/young...holars___Qualification_Criteria_384.aspx
suggests that a Math SAT score of 630 in Grade 7 puts one at the 99.9th %ile (of 7th graders in general, not just those who take the test, which is a self-selected group) so 730 is well above that. I've read that qualifying for SET http://cty.jhu.edu/set/ puts one at the 99.99th %ile.

You can't demonstrate those high percentiles with SAT in late high school because the ceiling is too low.

You can demonstrate high percentiles with math competitions. But I still don't see a reason to discard young and high SAT scores.

I know. Just found this on Duke tip website, the result summary reflects the 28,600 seventh grade scores received by Duke TIP this year, 730 in math is 99 percentile, 550 CR is surprisingly 90 percentile, and most unexpected to me is the 500 W score is 86 percentile!