SAT Score Choice: gift to students or marketing ploy?

February 10, 4:14 PMCollege Admissions ExaminerLauren Starkey

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Students registered for the SAT in March will have an option no other previous test-takers have had: they’ll get to send only their best scores to colleges next fall. Called Score Choice, the new reporting method doesn’t allow mixing and matching from test sittings, but students will be able to choose which sitting(s) they want college admissions officers to see.

The College Board’s rationale is that Score Choice will reduce test anxiety. Critics say it won’t really help students, because it will result in a new level of gamesmanship in a process already jammed with such tactics. They sound like the College Board itself, which reported in 2002 when it stopped offering Score Choice for its subject tests that “it encouraged ‘gamesmanship’ and appeared to favor wealthy students with access to guidance counselors who know how to maneuver the system.”

Score Choice could also significantly increase revenue for the College Board as is encourages students to take the test many times. But not every student can afford to do that. Score Choice will benefit the wealthier students who can plunk down $45. for each SAT registration. Ironically, this another reason the College Board gave in 2002. According to the New York Times, they went on the record then saying “ending Score Choice would be fairer to low-income and minority students, who did not have the resources to keep retaking the tests.”

Here’s another possibility: the SAT’s only rival, the ACT, has since its inception in 1958 allowed students to choose the scores they report. As the number of students taking the rival test increases, the College Board may have made the change to stay competitive.

Students who appreciate view Score Choice as an anxiety-reducer could be in for a surprise in the fall, though. A growing number of schools are rejecting the reporting method, requiring applicants to submit all of their scores. As of this writing, Stanford, University of Pennsylvania, Cornell, USC and Pomona College won't accept Score Choice. Harvard and the University of Chicago will, and Yale and Princeton still haven't decided.