SAT Score Reports - Nancy Federspiel, Director

One of the challenges of the college search and application process is keeping all of the rules straight. If we look at standardized testing - just one seemingly straightforward piece of the puzzle - we find a mind-numbing quantity of facts to keep straight. What is the difference between the ACT and SAT? Which one do you guess on the difficult problems and on which one do you skip the difficult problems? Which one has science on it and which one doesn't? Part of what makes it so challenging is that the rules keep changing. What used to be called Acheivement Tests, were changed to SAT IIs and are now called SAT Subject Tests. You can't be lulled into complacency thinking you know it all if you have not dealt with these tests in recent years.

There is another change coming from the College Board (the administers of the SAT tests) in 2009 and I thought I would take this opportunity to give you the "heads-up" about it. Currently, if a student requests that the College Board send his/her score report to a college that they are applying to for admission, the College Board will report on everything that student has taken. The report will include every sitting for the SAT reasoning test as well as every sitting for the SAT Subject tests. Starting in March 2009, however, the College Board will allow students to select the test dates that they would like to have reported. The entire test for that date will then be included on the report but if the test was taken multiple times the other results will not be reported. You will still not be able to select by subject over the multiple tests - in other words you can not have them report your highest verbal score received in May with the highest math score received in October. If a student does not request certain dates to be reported the default will be the traditional report with all test dates included.

The idea behind this is that it will take a little of the pressure off of a student on the testing day. If the student knows that there is an "escape clause" in case they bomb the test that day it will hopefully reduce test anxiety. For the colleges, hopefully this will give them a truer picture of the students' abilities by getting rid of the aberrations that a bad day can bring. A student won't be penalized in the unfortunate event that she was sick the day of the test or that he broke up with his girlfriend the night before the test. Another positive effect for the College Board is that they are keeping up with the competition. The ACT has always allowed the student to select the test sitting that they want reported. In recent years the ACT is gaining popularity with students in the Northeast - a traditional stronghold for the SAT.

This change will have no effect on this year's seniors as all of their score reports will have to be ordered and sent prior to the start of the new policy in March. But for those of you with Juniors - store this in your "fact file".