How to Explain Superscoring to Parents

While discussing their child’s test prep performance, you’ve likely wondered how to explain superscoring to parents in the best possible manner. You want to take such discussions beyond answering a simple question like what is superscoring. Superscoring allows students to showcase their best performance, so you want invested parents to fully understand the idea.

In this guide, you’ll find how, with superscoring, college admissions chances are impacted. We list out the colleges that accept superscores and cover how to send superscores to colleges. Next, you’ll find an analysis of the key factors to consider before choosing superscore. We move on to explaining superscoring to parents and address the key concerns about superscoring that parents have. 

In this SAT ACT superscore guide for parents, you’ll also find a clear discussion on how parents can support a superscoring strategy. We conclude up with some important, actionable advice for families using superscoring wisely. But first, we understand what superscoring is.
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What Is Superscoring

Superscoring is an option where colleges put together the highest sectional scores of a student from several SAT or ACT test dates, and consider that as the aggregate or composite score for that student.

This is in sharp contrast to the conventional approach of considering the composite score from one single test date. 

Because they use slightly different methods to arrive at the aggregate scores, the SAT and the ACT superscores are calculated in per their respective styles. 

For the SAT, the total superscore is simply the sum of the best Math score from any test date added to the best Reading/Writing score from any test date. In the case of the ACT, the best scores of the three sections (English, Math, and Reading) from any test dates of a student are first added. That total is then divided by 3, which gives the average score of the three compulsory sections. This average is rounded off to the nearest integer, which becomes the ACT composite superscore of that student.

While a student is free to calculate the superscore for their own reference, the official superscore is only what the college calculates. We cover sending superscores later in this article.

How to calculate superscores

Let us consider a hypothetical case of Lisa. She took the SAT three times and her scores are as below

While Lisa’s total scores in the last two dates are the same, her sectional scores are different on each of her three test dates.

Under superscore, her highest Math score is 650 (Date 2) while her highest Reading and Writing score is 710 (Date 1). That way, her total SAT score under superscore would be 1,360 - a clear benefit of 30 points over her best test scores.
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Why superscoring matters in the college admissions process

College admissions in the US rely considerably upon SAT and ACT scores; no prizes for guessing that superscoring is important.

Here are the five principal ways superscoring matters for college admissions:

1. Boosts composite scores:

For a student taking the SAT or the ACT two or more times, superscoring offers a unique opportunity. Superscoring automatically combines the best scores from different test scores and raises the composite score. 

2. Reduces stress of perfection in a single sitting:

Students typically try to maximize their scores every time they write a test. However, test fatigue and test anxiety can lower their ability to their best in each section on a single date. Just like early test prep can benefit students in scoring better sans anxiety, superscoring virtually eliminates the stress of sectional-best scoring in a single sitting. 

3. Displays student’s best performances:

Under superscoring, colleges that accept superscore get to see what’s the best a student can do in each section. That provides the college a more comprehensive understanding of the student’s potential. 

4. Improves admission and financial aid eligibility:

Because superscore displays a bigger total or aggregate score, it significantly raises the student’s chances of attracting financial aid. And of course, it improves their chances of getting admission.

5. Allows flexibility in test prep timelines and retakes: 

Students enjoy more freedom in their test prep timelines when they opt for supercoring. It allows them to space test retakes and thus score better.
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Why explain superscoring to parents

Parents play a key role in a student’s test prep journey, especially when multiple SAT or ACT attempts are involved. Understanding superscoring allows them to provide informed support, make strategic decisions, and provision for the costs involved. Here’s why it matters:

1. Financial planning and investment: Multiple test attempts may involve additional fees for registration or prep resources. Parents who understand superscoring can better assess whether retakes are worth the potential score improvement and weigh it against the style of test-prep their child is most comfortable with.
2. Active involvement in strategy: Understanding superscoring enables parents to participate in planning test schedules, ensuring that retakes are timed to maximize sectional scores, and reduce unnecessary stress.
3. Guidance and encouragement at home: Students often rely on parental support for motivation, organization, and managing test anxiety. When parents understand how superscoring works, they can give targeted encouragement and help maintain a balanced test prep routine.
4. Improved communication with tutors: Parents who know superscoring can engage meaningfully with tutors, asking informed questions and understanding recommendations for retakes or prep focus areas.
5. Critical support: As a tutor, you are likely the go-to resource expert, the in-personal parent guide to test test scores. By explaining superscoring, you make parents be a part of the team that not only cheers for the student but also offers critical support at home. This goes a long way in helping students achieve the scores their hard work deserves.

By ensuring parents grasp superscoring, tutors can turn them into effective allies in the student’s journey toward their best possible SAT or ACT results.
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How to help parents understand superscoring

Just like your students, their parents come from diverse educational, social, and financial backgrounds. The understanding and initiative that Kathy’s parents (who are both dentists) show will be significantly different from what Alizeh’s parents (the father doesn’t have a steady job and the mother is a janitor at a recreation park) bring.

Fortunately, popular analogies can explain test and admission concepts, and bring most parents to a common denominator.

To a parent who’s a music buff, explain superscoring as something like The Best of Celine Dion. The album doesn’t feature songs from just one event or one tour, but is a collection of the most loved songs of Celine Dion till date. Similarly, superscore is essentially a collection of the best performances of the student from not one test date, but across multiple test dates.

Or take popular baseball cards. Many baseball cards carry important game stats of players, like their high scores or most home runs in a season and so on. Pretty much the same way, a student’s superscore is a collection of the max they scored in each section all through the testing ‘season’.

While explaining this to your student’s parents, also reassure them that superscore is a common practice, fairly common. It benefits the students and can dramatically change their admission as well as scholarship probabilities.
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Parents’s concerns about superscoring

The questions parents ask to SAT/ACT tutors can vary. Yet, when it comes to superscoring, nearly all these questions center around five areas:

1. Fairness: Superscoring is a fair, legal, and acceptable option that many colleges have embraced. 
2. College policy: It’s part of the college policy to accept superscore or not. Some of them may accept superscore, but still insist on viewing all the scores as well.
3. Helpful: When students ask you a question like ‘Should I superscore?’, there’s always a chance the question originated from a parent who wants to know if superscoring would help. Yes, superscoring certainly helps because it allows students to showcase their best. In particular, superscoring is helpful when there is a considerable gap in a student’s sectional scores, or when you are convinced the score hasn’t done justice to what a student can achieve.
4. Acceptance: The College Board or the ACT, Inc. do not dictate how a college should accept scores. That freedom rests with respective colleges. So do not assume that every college chooses to view a student’s superscore.
5. Downsides: It’s not appropriate to say that superscore suits all students, under all circumstances. A little later in this article, we discuss some limitations of superscoring.

Which colleges accept superscores?

Things don’t end when a student finds that their most preferred university accepts superscoring. College admissions are also influenced by fees and scholarships - among other factors - so it’s important to collect detailed information.

Even when colleges say they accept superscores, it could mean one of the two things:

Case 1: The college accepts the superscore for their admission process but not for financial aid.

Case 2: The college accepts the superscore for their admission process as well as for financial aid. 

And within colleges that accept superscores, details vary. Some look at only the superscore but not at the other scores. Some colleges accept superscores, yet they need to look at all the test scores. Some colleges may offer freedom and allow a score choice. 

This is why students should research their preferred colleges in order to be updated about the latest policies regarding superscores.

Many colleges, including top-tier colleges, accept superscores. Below is a partial list of colleges that accept superscore. 

Examples of colleges that superscore the ACT

Public Universities:

University of Michigan–Ann Arbor

University of Wisconsin–Madison

Ohio State University

University of Washington

University of Texas at Austin

Indiana University Bloomington

University of Florida

Boston University

University of Colorado Boulder

Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University (Virginia Tech)

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Private Universities:

Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT)

Stanford University 

Harvard University

California Institute of Technology (Caltech)

University of Chicago

Princeton University

Yale University

Columbia University

Johns Hopkins University

Northwestern University

Duke University 

University of Pennsylvania

Cornell University

Brown University 

Rice University

Vanderbilt University

Georgetown University 

New York University (NYU)

Examples of colleges that superscore the SAT

Amherst College

Boston College

Brown University

Columbia University

Cornell University

Dartmouth College

Duke University

Fordham University

Georgia Institute of Technology

Johns Hopkins

Massachusetts Institute of Technology

New York University

Northwestern University

Rice University

Stanford University

Tufts University

University of Chicago

University of Pennsylvania

Vanderbilt University

Wesleyan University

Yale University

There are over 250 colleges that accept both the ACT and SAT superscore. Here’s a more comprehensive list:

Another 40+ colleges that accept only one of the two ACT or SAT superscore. Here’s the list:

Important note: 

In the list of colleges that accept only one of the two superscores (SAT or ACT, but not both), some colleges have a unique approach. 

For instance, Harvard accepts the SAT superscore but not the ACT. However, in case of the ACT, the student has the choice to decide which ACT score to send to Harvard. Further, the student can send the ACT superscore, but the college will review both the ACT superscore and the full ACT score from the strongest single sitting. After that the college will evaluate the application.
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Things to consider before relying on superscoring

As discussed, superscoring has some limitations too, so it may be a great idea for some students but not for others.

In order to gain the advantages of superscoring, a student needs to take the test more than once. That means added stress and additional costs. Hence, parents must consider the strengths as well as the limitations of superscoring before finalizing. 

Key limitations and considerations of superscoring

As a tutor, you want your student to choose the alternative that’d help them do their best. So during your discussions with the student’s parents, you might want to mention the below key advantages vs the drawbacks of superscoring:

• Opportunity vs overtesting: Superscoring offers the opportunity to improve scores. Against that, it could encourage overtesting. When multiple tests do not offer any material advantage, superscoring is no longer beneficial.
• Focus vs lowered commitment: Having a single test date raises the commitment of students. In some students, superscoring could mistakenly lead them to under-prepare, because they are relying on subsequent attempts.
• Bigger scores vs unbalanced performance: Some students prepare only for one section for one test date, and for the other section in the next test date. That would lead to poor scores in the weaker sections. It is important to remember that because colleges can view all scores, extremely low scores can still attract attention and hurt.
• Choices vs inconsistency: As a choice, superscoring should be used as an asset, an opportunity. Students who use it to hide their sectional limitations to get decent scores, can actually make the wrong choices. They might be tempted to enroll in a college or a course that’s not best suited to their abilities. Also, the luxury of using cherry-picking scores ends with the SAT and the ACT - once the student enters college, they will be subject to conventional quizzes and semester exams.

How to send superscores to colleges

The SAT and ACT have slightly different approaches on building superscores. If your student takes the ACT more than once, the ACT, Inc will automatically calculate the student’s superscore; no action is required from the student at that stage. After that, the student can request ACT, Inc. to send the superscore to whichever college they are targeting.

The SAT, on the other hand, offers students a choice. When students take the SAT on multiple dates, the College Board will let the student decide which test dates to use in order to build the superscore. After that, the SAT will send the superscore as well as the full test scores of each of the test dates. This means that the college will get to see the scores of all the sections of those test dates, not just the superscore.

In your meetings with the parents of your students, we recommend you stress the importance of college policies. Different colleges have different score policies, so it’s critical that your student fully understands what the college needs and submit appropriate details and scores. Sending superscores, in short, requires students to understand what the college is looking for.
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When and how to update colleges with new test scores

Short answer: Send the scores promptly, through the channels the college has suggested - and don’t wait till the last date.

Long answer: 

Because superscoring boosts a student’s admission application, you want their parents to make sure colleges receive updated SAT or ACt scores at the right time.

Once official scores are released by the College Board or ACT, Inc., review them and confirm they are higher than previously submitted ones. Ideally, send updated scores at least two to three weeks before application deadlines to ensure colleges can process them on time.

How parents can help send superscores

1. Order official score reports through the College Board or the ACT website.
2. Select the colleges your child is applying to. Even if you’ve sent scores earlier, arrange to send them the new scores so that the college can combine results for superscoring.
3. Notify colleges directly if the new scores arrive close to a deadline. You can email the admissions office with your child’s full name, application ID, and note that updated scores have been sent.
4. Check confirmation on your child’s application portal to ensure the scores were received and matched.

Keeping colleges updated ensures your student’s strongest scores are considered and they get the maximum benefits from superscoring.
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How parents can support a superscoring strategy

Students need to make important choices, one of which is superscoring. College admissions and test-prep is a tough, demanding journey for students. As young adults, students are struggling with understanding their strengths and weaknesses, exploring potential career options, handling test anxiety, and coping with the extremely competitive atmosphere around them. 

All through this, parents can offer support to their child and make things a little easier for them:

• Discuss: Instead of jumping to conclusions, discuss college admissions with an open mind.
• Be objective: Ask for supporting data if you aren’t convinced about something. When presenting your point of view, offer data that supports your argument.
• Balance: Help children balance ambition and preparations against strengths, weaknesses, and opportunities.
• Be candid: Explain what financial assistance you can - or cannot - extend. Help your children bridge gaps while they explore financial aid opportunities.
• Empathize: Be patient, and make sincere efforts to understand that many conventional ideas about education, career, and learning have changed in the past decade or so.

Final advice for families using superscoring wisely

While superscoring is a great way to present the best scores to a student’s dream college, it is certainly not a silver bullet. Nor is it a substitute for planning, hard work, resources, or the right tutoring guidance. 

On the one hand, superscoring allows students to benefit from multiple tests and having colleges consider the best sectional scores from different test dates. On the other hand, the freedom of taking multiple tests also taxes the student in terms of anxiety or lowered commitment per test, depending upon the student.

Some of the colleges that accept superscore may still look at the student’s overall scores. And finally, the benefits of superscoring can only be realised if a student takes a test multiple times - which means better tutoring guidance and more expenses for the test.

With this context, families can do the following so that their student can get the best out of superscoring:

• Research colleges: Does the student’s dream college accept superscore?
• Emphasize planning: Discuss how the tutor and the student are planning for the test-prep ahead of time.
• Support application building: Help and support students build a better and stronger college admission application.
• Nurture positivity: Parents would do well to their bit in creating an environment that’s conducive to learning and growing.

One of the most important facets of leveraging superscoring is understanding the student’s strengths and weaknesses early on. 

Taking a practice digital SAT is key to identifying areas that need the most attention. And the insight analytics after the test, as can be seen in the adjoining screenshot, will show the path to building scores faster and better.

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