Hi everyone,
I personally have had many annoying, to use a nice term, encounters with the College Board. I am positive others have as well. I have seen discussions like the “I Got in without a 3.7+ GPA Club” and intend for this be like so, a discussion that is not entirely serious in the way that others on College Confidential are but still valid.
So my issues:
In early October I went to send my scores to the colleges I was applying early to/ knew I would eventually be applying to. When I tried to do score choice the College Board website would redirect my so I figured I was not allowed to with the colleges I was applying to, something along those lines, and I submitted. Then my mother asked in curiosity if I could go through the process again to see if there had been an error with the website, and there had been. My mother called first thing in the morning while I was at school to ask if anything could be changed. They said they would consider retracting my scores and would let me know later, which I know I am lucky just for that to have occurred. A week later they called and left a message saying they had retracted my scores and had credited the money to my account. That night I sent my scores with score choice to the same schools. Later when I I received access to the application portal for one of my schools I saw they had received every single score, When I called the College Board again they said that they had never agreed to retract my scores and that the situation was my own fault. I understand I should have noticed there was an error in the moment with the site, but at the time I was just worried about scores arriving on time for my EA schools and was more concerned with getting them in. I know I am incredibly lucky they said they would retract them in the first place, but for them to deny that they had when I had all the emails and the phone messages in which they said would is still frustrating. I can’t help but think what if that one bad subject test score lead to me being deferred at one of my more selective schools? It’s just incredibly frustrating.
Then today I logged onto the portal for my top choice to see that they had not yet received my scores. I sent my scores to this school in October with the batch mentioned above. I sent these scores in October and it is now early January. I know there can be a lag of a few weeks sometimes but this is now a few months. That is ridiculous. I’m sure when I call in the morning they’ll tell me I never sent my scores in the first place and to pay again.
A few of my teachers have called the College Board the Evil Empire offhandedly, and I wholeheartedly agree that that is a fabulous nickname for them. They are entirely for profit and they do not care about students in the least. You can’t escape them either. At the end of calls they ask you to rate your satisfaction and if you would recommend their service to a friend as if you can get away from them. Sure you could take the ACT, but you might apply somewhere that needs SAT Subject Tests as well. My GC told me that they distribute teaching accreditations so you might need them for your job. They are always there and they can do whatever they want because you need them. All of it just seems ridiculous to me. That is my rant.