How to Keep an SAT Score Taken Before 9th Grade

A parent recently asked me how a student could keep an SAT score that the student received in 7th grade.

The College Board’s policy is to destroy SAT scores from students who took the test before 9th grade. To keep a score from an SAT test that a student takes before 9th grade, the family will need to contact the College Board soon after the test and request that the College Board keep the score active and not discard the score.  This is a simple process but since the request must be made by a certain date,  parents should be aware that time is of the essence.

You might ask why a student would want to keep an SAT score taken before 9th grade.  Some students take the SAT early to qualify for talent identification programs such as the Center for Talented Youth at Johns Hopkins and Midwest Talent Search at Northwestern.  Some of these students score well enough at this age that they want to keep the score for college admissions purposes in case they don’t do as well in the future.

In my experience this is not a worry. If a student scores well enough on the SAT before 9th grade that they want to keep the score, the student is very likely to do as well, or better, when they are in high school.  Moreover, colleges prefer to see more recent scores than one that is 4 or 5 years old.

If you got an 800 or other very high score before 9th grade, go ahead and keep the score for possible use in superscoring. But the chances are, you will be able to duplicate that result once you get to high school.