Colleges and universities can still request students' complete SAT score reports, even if students choose to hide some scores using a new College Board program that allows test takers to select which of their scores will appear on their official transcript. Dartmouth has not yet decided whether to request applicants' full score reports, Dean of Admissions Maria Laskaris said in an e-mail to The Dartmouth.
Beginning in March 2009, the Score Choice program will allow students who take the SAT multiple times to choose which attempts to include on their official College Board transcripts at no cost, the College Board announced in June. Students must always report all three section scores from a single test date. Students previously had to report the scores of all SATs they had taken. This applies to both the SAT Reasoning Test and SAT Subject Tests.
Several online publications, including Inside Higher Education, have suggested the College Board has not made clear to students that colleges and universities can request hidden scores. This option may be at odds with the announced intent of the Score Choice Program, the publications said.
An explanation of colleges' options when processing applicants' scores can be found on CollegeBoard.com.
The list, which is available on a separate web page for education professionals, is not posted on the student section of the web site.
The College Board said in a June statement that Score Choice was designed in response to feedback from high school students as a way to reduce stress during testing.
Students had reported that knowing that their score would be permanently recorded increased their anxiety, the College Board said in the statement.
Some institutions, including Stanford University, Cornell University and the University of Pennsylvania, have already decided not to participate in Score Choice and to request all of an applicant's test scores from the College Board.
"We want to discourage students from taking the SAT more than once or twice and believe that programs like Score Choice encourage applicants with resources to take the SAT excessively to improve their scores," Stanford's Director of Admissions Shawn Abbott told The Stanford Daily.
In a previous interview with The Dartmouth, Laskaris said she doubted that Score Choice would significantly affect the way Dartmouth reads applications. Dartmouth admissions officers generally consider only an applicant's highest possible SAT score, combining section scores from multiple test dates if applicable, according to Laskaris.
Harvard College Dean of Admissions William Fitzsimmons has said Harvard will use the Score Choice program. Sending multiple scores may benefit applicants, however, because Harvard's admissions officers, like Dartmouth's, combine sections to create the highest possible total, Fitzsimmons told The Harvard Crimson.
Alana Klein, a College Board representative, said Score Choice gives students' more flexibility, even though some colleges and universities may choose not to participate in the program.
"The options were developed with the notion in mind that colleges are not one-size fits all," Klein said in an e-mail to The Dartmouth. "Colleges and universities use scores differently, and we will be helping them communicate their score-use practices via CollegeBoard.com once Score Choice launches in March."
