<p>Last night my son registered for the December 1 SAT. He's a junior and obviously has not applied to any schools yet. Do we still have his scores sent to the schools that are at the top of our preliminary list? What do the schools do with the scores of kids they haven 't heard of?</p>
<p>Don't worry about sending scores until applications are sent out next fall. They'll just sit around doing nothing and the colleges won't look at them without an application.</p>
<p>So, do you "waste" your 4 free ones, or can you add them any time?</p>
<p>Well, my son did send his scores for free to Ohio State (his first choice) and several others when he took both the SAT and ACT his junior year. Ohio State actually called him personally and said that they had received his scores, answered questions, invited him for a tour, etc. I was quite surprised by this personalized service from such a big university. The other schools, well we did receive some emails and mail from them, not sure if we would have received it without the scores sent, or not.</p>
<p>If he has 4 schools on his list already, it wouldn't hurt to send them if he plans not to take the ACT. If he's doing SAT only, the schools to which he applies will see all his scores, good or bad. So there's no harm in sending them now, and this is the time to do it if you don't want to pay the extra fee. If he wants to be able to choose between SAT and ACT reporting, he shouldn't send them yet. </p>
<p>The SAT reporting is cumulative, so schools see only what scores are available at the time they are first sent. We sent the SAT I's to 4 schools that were of interest. By the time he took the SAT II, DS had 4 more schools he was interested in, so they got both the SAT I and II scores. If it turns out any of the original 4 schools require the SAT II's, then we will need to send another report to them if he decides to apply there.</p>
<p>D didn't want to send scores to schools before she had seen them. So we "wasted" the 4 free ones. In the grand scheme of college costs, the extra $40 bucks or so we spent to send them to those 4 schools didn't seem like a big deal.</p>
<p>To answer missypie directly, yes you will "waste" your 4 free ones if you do not name the schools at the time you take the test because there is no carryover.</p>
<p>But then any time you want scores sent to a school (after you take the test), you just log on, add the school and pay the fee, right?</p>
<p>Right, you pay them and they will send all scores taken as of that date.</p>
<p>My D did use her 4 free score reports each time, just to let schools know that she was interested. She got a nice post card back from UWisconsin saying: We got your scores....and they're Great! Always nice to get some possitive feedback early in the process.</p>