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How to Send SAT Scores to Colleges
Submitting SAT scores involves a few simple steps
For those juniors or seniors who recently sat for the October or November SAT or are planning for the upcoming December test, score results should be available to you in time for submission to colleges with RD, EDII or Rolling deadlines. After scores are back and students review their results, the next step is knowing how to forward those scores to colleges.
How to submit SAT scores?
If you are happy with your results and would like to submit your SAT scores to colleges, log into your College Board account and head to the Sending SAT Scores page via this link.
If you have received a fee waiver code, you will be prompted to add it at that time.
Next, search by name for the individual college(s) to which you wish to submit your scores. You can also search by institution code, but searching by college name is usually faster. Since more than one college may share the same name, be sure that you are choosing the right school to receive your scores. Head to the college's web page to double check location and/or institution code.
Continue by adding colleges to the school recipient list, as appropriate. Review your order, pay the required fee and submit.
Do I need to submit all my scores to colleges?
Good news! For the most part, students are able to choose their best score(s) for submission to colleges. However, it is important to note that colleges maintain their own Score Choice policies, specifying if students have the option to choose which scores to submit -- or if all scores must be submitted. As students input individual colleges into the score order form, the college's score submission policies will pop up.
Does this mean that I can submit individual score sections?
Actually, no. SAT scores are reported in full. It is up to the individual college receiving more than one submitted score to create a "superscore" for the applicant. A superscore reflects the highest recalculated total of the combined Critical Reading and Math portions of the test.
How can I save money on score reporting if I do not have a fee waiver?
There is rarely a need to order score submissions each time a student tests! One can wait until they have achieved a score they wish to report rather than report and pay for every score result.
In other good news, most Common Application colleges allow SAT self-reporting. Applicants can self report their highest Critical Reading and Math scores with corresponding testing dates within the testing section of the Common App. Once an admitted applicant decides to attend their college of choice, they will then be required to submit official test results from the College Board.
Of course, students choosing a test optional approach do not need to report scores at the time of application.
Retesting
If you are confident that by retesting you could yield a higher result, there is always the option of taking advantage of the College Board's
four free score reports. At the time of test registration or on in-school test day, students are invited to include four colleges to automatically receive score reports. While this is an upfront cost-saving approach, many students prefer to wait to review their scores prior to submission to colleges.
Marla Platt, M.B.A. is an independent college consultant based in Sudbury, MA through AchieveCoach College Consulting, providing expert and personalized guidance to students and families throughout the college planning, search and admissions process. Marla is a professional member of the Independent Educational Consultants Association and can be reached via www.achievecoach.com
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