Although on the surface Score Choice seems like a great option, its true value is up for debate. College Board’s reason for implementing Score Choice was to alleviate students’ anxiety; since any given test can be excluded the stakes are not as high. But by encouraging students to retake the test multiple times Score Choice can actually cause more anxiety. Even if students know colleges will not necessarily see the score, sitting for the SAT is always a grueling and stressful experience. Taking the exam multiple times means multiple such experiences. And, there is a major loophole: individual colleges can choose to opt out of Score Choice. Thus a student may choose to have only one score sent to schools, but a given college will ask for and receive reports from all of her multiple testing dates. And they can do this. Stanford, Cornell, Pomona, UPenn and USC have already stated they will opt out of Score Choice and many others are still considering their own policy. So be warned: check with each college you are applying to before you get excited about Score Choice. You may actually have no choice.
Finally, it might be helpful to know that in previous years admissions offices used the best score for each section from a student’s multiple test reports to create an official test record. The admissions committee then used the created test score during their deliberations. According to Dartmouth College’s Dean of Admissions, a fairly large number of schools, including Dartmouth, used this process. Therefore, by choosing to use the College Boards’ Score Choice a student will not benefit from this type of score consolidation. In the end, "students may be doing themselves a disservice by suppressing scores that could be beneficial,” says Steve Thomas, admissions director at Colby College. So take heed and think carefully before making a decision on whether or not to use Score Choice.