This may seem like a dumb question, but how does score reporting work in the common app for schools that do NOT require all scores?
For example, let’s say I am applying to UCF. They DO NOT require subject test scores. I am also applying to Dartmouth. They DO require subject test scores.
When it asks me to report scores on the COMMON part of the common app (the part that is the same for all schools that I am applying to), do I put my subject test scores? Even if I am NOT sending an official score report to UCF, because they don’t require it?
Same question goes for schools with and without score choice. (i.e. NYU vs. Yale) Do I just put all my scores in the score section of the common app, then send specific score reports to the schools that require certain tests?
Help! I will be applying to 12 schools with the common app next year and I am trying to understand everything so I don’t have to freak out when August 1st comes around. Thanks!
Score reporting on the Common App is optional; you can list any/all/none. No college will take you at your word on your scores, so an official score report is needed regardless. So you need to make sure you send what each college requires.
Personally, I just listed all my scores on the Common App, but it really does not matter.
First of all, this summer you’ll need to become familiar with what you can do and not do with the Common App. It changes every year and those changes are well-described early in the summer before it "re-opens’ in August. One year, a student couldn’t make any changes to the “common” part and the next year, a student could. My D’16 would re-organize her ECs based on where she was applying, because she applied to some specialized programs as well as others. So it would help you to understand before August what Common App 2017-18 will be able to do. Next, you can do what skieurope wrote (which is definitely straightforward, and it’s likely that adding additional info will only help your app unless a college has said not to send additional info), or you can break your apps into two groups and do the ones that don’t need the test scores first - and send them. Do the others later. But do yourself a favor and understand the Common App. You’ll feel better in the fall.
While you can, it does increase the possibility for error in sending the wrong app to the wrong college. The Common App opens 8/1, so any updates to instructions will be updated then, as well as any updates on their help center.
Listing more info than is required would not be held against you by any college; if they wanted a unique, college-specific app, they would not participate in the Common App.