Standardized Testing Reporting

SAT and SAT Subject Test Scores

Pomona College requires that applicants submit all SAT scores from all test dates. The admissions committee will consider your highest section scores across all SAT test dates. Final admissions decisions will be made using only your highest individual test scores.

Each time you submit scores, Pomona College will update your record with any new individual high scores. Sending your scores each time you take the SAT can benefit you by allowing Pomona College to fully consider your application in the context of your best testing performance.

• Pomona believes a full testing history, like a full transcript, provides context for a fair evaluation for each candidate. Pomona has a strong interest in reviewing all our candidates with straightforward and common standards, which includes the presentation of all academic work from all schools attended and includes test scores from all examinations. If different students use different rules, establishing a fair and common set of considerations is seriously challenged. We wish to create as level a playing field as possible for our candidates and believe that students who cannot afford repeated testing or test preparation courses should not be considered with a different battery of information.
• We also hope this policy will discourage too much testing. Our recommendation typically is that students should test twice. Some students will find more comfort in a third testing but testing many times only very, very rarely has produced measurably different results. We believe time is better spent elsewhere.
• Test scores are only one element in a very thorough application review process and given the academic strength of our applicants, and only with exceptional rarity, have test results been the final decision point in our considerations.

The testing requirement applies equally to the ACT and the SAT and parallels our requirement that students submit full academic records for all schools attended.

ACT Scores

Pomona College requires that you submit all ACT scores from all test dates. Consistent with the ACT standards for acceptable use of ACT test scores, the admissions office will record the test date reflecting the highest composite score. We will consider all sittings and having all test scores from all dates permits the admissions deans further consideration of peak or higher sub-scores from other test dates as skill sets and performance are evaluated in our review process.

Further Background

Sending all tests will simplify for candidates the process of reporting tests to us in a timely way. When the College Board offered a score choice option several years ago, literally thousands of students across the country lost track of which scores were sent to which colleges. Many students failed to meet deadlines and many colleges based decisions (including the decision to deny admission) based upon incomplete information. College admission officers may not know if they have the complete record of tests to consider or whether some additional scores will be forthcoming at all (particularly true if a student has taken both ACT and SAT and not indicated on their application the test dates).

It is obviously to the benefit of students to get things in on time, present complete representation of their testing (which Pomona considers a transcript) and to allow Pomona admissions officers automatically and routinely to select the highest individual test scores. Of additional concern are students who sit for December tests and choose initially to withhold score reports, raise the possibility of missing the deadline for the chosen application cycle.

Since the vast majority of colleges and universities (Pomona included) automatically select the highest individual scores for consideration, it is possible students would in selecting the best three scores for consideration leave on the sidelines a stronger score in one of the Critical Reading, Math or Writing tests than will be selected for presentation.