My scores are listed on my common app, so do I need to send my scores to every single college I apply to? Or do I send them only to the place I end up going? I’m just wondering because these application fees are adding up.
You need to check the website for each college to see what they require. Some will let you wait, some won’t. In case you haven’t done it yet, CSS Profile also costs money to send. That is one reason students shouldn’t apply to too many schools – the costs add up.
Some schools do not require Sat or Act for their admissions decision. But for schools that do require them, your listing the scores on the common app will not be suffice.
Yes, most colleges will require you to send your official SAT or ACT score report. Read each college’s website for requirements. For almost all, it is not sufficient to just list your scores; they want proof. Some colleges allow a screen shot of your official online SAT/ACT report from low income applicants, so that way you don’t have to pay CollegeBoard/ACT to have scores sent. If you are very low income, you also may be able to get a fee waiver from the testing organizations to send your scores. Look into your options. But self-reporting is almost never sufficient.
Check the rules of the colleges to which you intend to apply; you will find those in the colleges’ websites. You have basically four different groups of colleges. The majority require you to have official scores sent by the testing agency; a fairly large minority will alternatively accept test scores that appear on your offical high school transcript that you have sent by your high school to the college when you apply; a small minority accept self-reported scores on your application or screen shots of your test scrores, which then usually must be verified by sending official scores after you are offerred admission; and there is a minority, that is slowly growing, that do not require test scores to determine admission (although many of those accept scores if you send them, in which case you may have to send official scores or have them on your offical high school transcript).
Also be aware that some colleges follow group notification. For example, all the colleges in the University of California group of colleges allow you to send offical scores to any one of those colleges, and all to which you are applying will get them from the one.