Help! Submitting SAT scores after Early Decision deadline

I took the SAT on November 7th, after submitting the common app on Nov 1st. For my ED college (Carnegie Mellon University) I selected the box that said that I didn’t want my SAT scores to be considered.

I think this was a mistake. Can I still send my score reports to the college when they come out on November 20th or has that ship sailed? Thank you.

“It’s strongly preferred that Early Decision applicants complete all standardized testing by November 1. If there are circumstances that have led you to take a test after November 1, in the month of November, make sure you’ve indicated the future test you’re taking on the Common Application. The Office of Admission will do our best to wait until these scores arrive before making an admission decision, however this will cause a delay in the review of your application.”

If you indicated you were applying test-optional, I’d say it’s too late.

my son is in the exact same boat. He is going to submit them (if he did well). I don’t think there’s any downside and it may help, who knows. He plans to send an email to the school when he gets them 11/20, not send them officially (which can take days) on the theory the sooner the better to get them.

The possible downside is that AO’s sometimes don’t look kindly on those who don’t follow application guidelines and/or think they’re “special” so the guidelines don’t apply to them. Especially when they advise applicants to “make sure” to do something.

In the middle of processing thousands of applications on a very tight deadline, become “that guy” can be an issue, even if subconsciously.

Good point! I think a little explanation might help, but you run the risk of annoying them I guess.

For my son, while he was signed up for November, his March, August, and September attempts to take the test were all cancelled by COVID. So we didn’t have high confidence it would happen in November. We figured that if we checked the “taking the exam”, it would hold up his review til later in the ED process, and then if the exam got cancelled we’d have to email the school and say “never mind about those scores”. That also made me worry they might think “what happened did he do poorly?” So that’s why we did what we did. Turns out he did take the SAT - miracle of miracles.

My son plans to send an email saying “With my 3 previous attempts to take the exam cancelled I did not think November would happen. However, it did, and my scores were…”