When the College Board announced its new Score Choice program last year, high school students were excited about the prospect of being able to control which SAT and Subject Test scores would be sent to colleges.

Some students began taking the SAT in the fall, rather than waiting till spring of junior year, thinking they would take the test five or six times and colleges would never know.

But some colleges require students to report all test scores. Taking the SAT six times is excessive.

Admissions officers do not give points for persistence when it comes to standardized tests and are more likely to wonder about a student’s judgment. Admissions officers at some colleges are also concerned that students from affluent families may have an unfair advantage in being able to take the test multiple times with extensive test preparation.

Score Choice is creating confusion for families and causing headaches for the counselors who are trying to advise them. There’s enough stress for students in the college application process without having to decide which scores to send to each college.

If you do not request Score Choice, the College Board will send all SAT and Subject Test scores from all test dates.

If you want to use Score Choice, you can send SAT scores from any test date. You cannot send the critical reading score from one test date and the math score from another test date. But you can send the Chemistry Subject Test score and withhold the Spanish score even if they were taken on the same date, because they are different tests.

While the College Board will not release scores without permission, that doesn’t mean you can ignore a college’s requirement that all scores be reported. When you submit an application to a college, your signature is a pledge that you have honestly answered all questions.

Personal integrity is important to admissions officers, and they do not look kindly on students gaming the system in any way.

I had lunch recently with an admissions officer at a selective college who said her school had rejected applicants whose scores made it obvious that the students answered only the critical reading questions while ignoring the math sections on a certain test date and then only answered math questions on another test date.

While this approach may have been strategic, to the college it demonstrated a lack of personal integrity.

Unless admissions officers have reason to question a student’s integrity, they don’t focus on lower test scores when scores from different test dates are submitted.

As this admissions officer pointed out, it is in the college’s interest to use a student’s higher scores so that the school can report higher average test scores to US News & World Report for its college rankings.

There’s really no reason to obsess over which scores to send. Most private colleges will combine the highest reading, math and writing scores from different test dates.

The UC and many other public universities use the highest total from any one test date. In either case, there is no disadvantage in reporting all test scores. Honesty really is the best policy.

Juniors can avoid much of this stress by creating an SAT plan.

Use your PSAT results to figure out what areas you need to work on for the SAT. If you prepare before your first SAT, you might only need to take the test once. But you can certainly do some additional preparation and take the test again. After taking the SAT twice, you will have done your best. Audrey Kahane, MS, MFA, is a private college admissions coun selor in West Hills. She can be reached at (818) 704-7545 or audrey@audreykahane.com.