The College Board recently announced a new score reporting option for the SATs called Score Choice. According to the College Board press release, "this new policy will give students the option to choose the SAT scores by sitting (test date) and SAT Subject Test scores by individual test that they send to colleges, at no additional cost. This will allow students to put their best foot forward on test day by giving them more flexibility and control over their scores." Score Choice will not affect current high school seniors, but the new policy will impact all classes for the foreseeable future starting with current high school juniors. We believe the College Board launched Score Choice to better compete with the ACT which already has a similar policy and to help students ease test anxiety.

The announcement of Score Choice has already begun to cause a stir throughout the field of education. Some test prep companies are recommending that students solely focus on one section of the SAT each time they take the test. Some even encourage students to randomly fill in the answers for the two sections they are not "focused" on for a particular test. Private Prep does not advocate such a strategy.

After reaching out to contacts in college admissions, there is some uncertainty about how they will view scores. Some top tier schools have already expressed their disapproval of the new policy. In general, Private Prep encourages juniors to take the SAT for the first time in either January or March and everyone should take the test at least twice. We continue to stress the importance of being well prepared for any test and students should do their best on all three sections.

 

For more information about the new College Board policy please click on the link titled "More on Score Choice" in the Quick Links section above.