High school students looking to put together a spotless college application no longer need to stress about one Saturday morning tarnishing their records. This spring, students will be able to determine which scores from the SAT Reasoning and Subject Tests they will send to colleges on their official score reports. The College Board will implement the new policy, called “Score Choice,” in March 2009, starting with the college application process for the Class of 2010. John Anderson, Director of College Counseling, said that if a student “takes a test before March 2009, [Score Choice] will apply to those scores as well, which is good because we have a lot of Uppers take the SAT in January.” This means that Score Choice will not be applicable to Seniors applying to colleges this year. Score Choice will give students the option to select their SAT Reasoning scores by test date and SAT Subject Test scores by individual test, at no extra fee. However, the policy does not allow students to mix and match their SAT scores for math, critical reading and writing from different test dates. The College Board’s current score-reporting policy states that if a student wishes to send one SAT score to colleges, all other scores must also be sent to colleges in the official report. According to Anderson, the new policy will not affect how the College Counseling Office advises students on their test-taking plan. “At this point in time, we’re not suggesting anything different to our students. We’re still saying that the best sequence is that you start in the PSAT in October of the Upper year, followed by January of Upper year for the Reasoning Test, and in the spring, for the June and May tests, some combination of the Reasoning and Subject Tests,” said Anderson. Anderson also said that he believes the Score Choice policy will make the SAT less stressful for students because their scores will not be automatically included on the score report. “I think it might relieve a little bit of the stress or pressure. Any way we can take stress or pressure off of students as it pertains to testing is good, because there’s way too much self-imposed agony,” he said. Linda Sullivan, Director of Standardized Testing, said that she approves of the College Board’s move towards greater flexibility in score reporting. “Right now, if you took multiple Subject Tests in one day and you didn’t do so well on one of them, you would have to cancel them all. With the new implementation for score reporting, you can choose which one you want to cancel, which I think is awesome,” said Sullivan. Anderson said that the College Board might have decided to change their policies based on growing competition from the ACT, an alternative college entrance exam. “Essentially, what the ACT already does is that you can take it three times and you can pick the highest composite and you can send that off to colleges. So this [new policy] will put College Board on an equal footing with the ACT. I certainly think that had something to do with it,” said Anderson. Sullivan said that at Phillips Academy alone, she has witnessed “a big increase in popularity” for the ACT, partly because of the program’s score reporting policies and also because students have claimed that the test is easier than the SAT. Three years ago, Sullivan said that approximately 125 to 150 students registered for the October ACT. Last year, that number jumped to 250 students. This year, there are over 300 students registered to take the ACT at Andover on October 25, according to Sullivan. Sullivan said that the only downside to the College Board’s new policy is that students may now take a particular SAT test too lightly because they can hide their score. “The only con I can think of is perhaps if you go into a test and you don’t really try your best because you know that you did okay on the other one… you can sort of let this one go,” she said. Anderson said, “I don’t think [students] are going to abuse the test policy, but they might because everybody who is taking it knows that there’s a safety outlet, assuming that if you take it again your scores go up. We’ll have to see what happens in the spring.” According to Anderson, the College Board has been considering the Score Choice policy for a few years. He said that he attends national and regional College Board forums twice a year, and over the last 18 months, they have addressed the possible policy change. “There have been conversations between College Board members and college counselors and college admission people. They really wanted to talk to people and make sure that people would understand the change and support it,” said Anderson. Sullivan said that the College Board was hoping to implement Score Choice for this fall but delayed it until spring of 2009. Tina Kit ’09 was one of the 413 students taking the SAT on campus last Saturday. “I don’t think the new policy really matters because most schools only look at your higher scores anyway. I don’t think that it affects me in any way, but it’s fortunate that the Class of 2010 can do that,” said Kit. Will Lindsey ’10 said, “I think it’s beneficial to the students because it gives them the opportunity to show their work. But it doesn’t necessarily reduce my stress level because I’m still taking the same test.”
