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 fall, rather than waiting until spring of junior year, thinking they would take the test five or six times and colleges would never know.

But after they realized that some colleges require students to report all test scores, these students found themselves in a predicament. 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 and perhaps mental health. Admissions officers at some colleges are also concerned that students from affluent families may get an unfair edge by taking the test multiple times with extensive test preparation.

While the College Board may have claimed that this new policy would reduce anxiety, the effect has been just the opposite. Score Choice is creating confusion for families and causing headaches for the counselors trying to advise them. There’s enough stress for students in the college application process without the pressure of having to figure out which scores to send to each college.

Some colleges have clearly explained their policies on their Web sites while others have not addressed the issue. When you go online to have your scores sent from the College Board, the system will notify you of the score choice policy for that college. The default is to send all SAT and Subject Test scores from all test dates.

If you want to use Score Choice, you can decide to 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 test score even if they were taken on the same date, because they are different tests.

If you are using the Common Application, the test scores you report on the Common Application should match the scores sent to colleges by the College Board. If you want to report different scores to different colleges, you need to either create an alternate version of the Common Application or not report any scores on the Common Application.

While students do maintain control over their scores, and 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.

Some students have been advised to use a strategic approach in taking the SAT and only do the critical reading and writing sections while ignoring the math sections on a certain test date, and then concentrating on the math and not bothering with critical reading or writing on another test date.

An admissions officer at a selective college told me her school has denied admission to students who have used this strategy, which is obvious to colleges when reading, math and writing scores go from 650 on one test date to 200 on another and vice versa, because it demonstrates a lack of personal integrity.

But unless the difference in scores is extreme enough that there is reason to question a student’s integrity, as in the previous scenario, admissions officers have no incentive to focus on lower test scores when scores from different test dates are submitted. This admissions officer pointed out that it is in the college’s interest to use a student’s higher scores, so that the school can report higher scores to U.S. News & World Report for its college rankings.

There’s really no reason to obsess over which scores to send. Many private colleges will combine the highest reading, math and writing scores from different test dates. Public universities often 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. You can 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 work if necessary and take the test again. After preparing and taking the SAT twice, you will have done your best and you won’t have test scores you feel you need to hide. Occasionally it makes sense to take the SAT a third time, but most students will not see significant improvements after two test administrations.