<p>Guidance office just informed us that they must list all SAT and SAT II that a student takes on the official transcript. They tell me it's a Virginia law. Anyone else have guidance doing this? I can't find anything on this and I can't imagine why it would be a law since Collegeboard recommends schools not do this and they now offer score choice. We did not send our ACT scores to the school because we had no idea how they would turn out. It looks like we will be using those scores over SAT and I don't want the SAT to go out. Any advice?
Thanks!</p>
<p>This was a surprise to me and I thought your guidance office was just trying to make their job easier. As I read the following, per the Virginia Administrative Code, it is required. </p>
<p>[LIS</a> > Administrative Code > 8VAC20-160-30](<a href=“Legislative Information System”>Legislative Information System)</p>
<p>Geez. We don’t even live in Va, but I think that rule stinks.</p>
<p>What the guidance office told snowspud – “they must list all SAT and SAT II hat a student takes on the official transcript” – and what the regulation says – “Test record, to include at least the highest score earned, if applicable, on college performance-related standardized tests such as SAT and ACT” – are somewhat different. The regulation does not say ALL tests, just the highest scores. And I could easily imagine a school concluding that the regulation requires including the highest equivalent score on one of the two tests, not the highest of each of them if both were taken.</p>
<p>However, the regulation is just the minimum. A school is allowed to put MORE on the transcript than the regulation requires it to. So if a school wants to put all test scores on there, it is certainly within its rights.</p>
<p>I never thought too much about the transcript requirements but at one point, all of D’s scores were noted on her transcript (these included scores from 7th and 8th grade). These were hand-noted on the back of the transcript and you’d really have to look for them. I didn’t think too much about it and it never occurred to me to contest having them there. I can’t imagine the bureaucratic nightmare of constantly updating transcripts when each test result came in to make certain only the highest score was shown. I suspect it is intended to save students in poorer districts the money associated with multiple score reports, whether it works that way or not. I suspect if you send the official ACT report to colleges they’ll be looking at that rather than sifting through the transcript to manually enter data from the SAT.</p>
<p>I made a few calls about this as our school does this (VA) and never updated the scores and/or added subsequent tests. I was never able to resolve it with our GC. She’s normally great so this was not something I chose to make an issue of. So S2’s transcript did go to his schools with his original SAT/SAT2’s.</p>
<p>They are considered ‘soft scores’ and not official by universities. You will have to send official scores to the university for consideration. If you are trying to keep a lower score from getting to a university I guess you could try to work with the school to list only the highest test scores. Personally, I don’t think it makes any difference. A school that uses score choice will only consider the highest score, a school that requires all tests or highest single sitting will have the test anyway.</p>
<p>Why would Virginia pass this law? It’s doubtful to save anyone money as colleges will want official score reports, right?</p>
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<p>Virginia legislators are not known as being the sharpest tacks in the box, particularly in the predominantly agricultural area I live in. Of course colleges will still want official score reports but this hasn’t been updated since end of 2007 - when did score choice become an option?</p>
<p>I have to agree with blueiguana - I honestly don’t think the scores on the transcript are really going to matter.</p>
<p>@ sabaray - LOL! I totally agree with you on this one! 
You have to scratch you head on some of these things. Score choice was implemented in 2009.</p>
<p>At our school in NY state students have the option of having scores on or off transcript.</p>
<p>It’s not a statute. It’s a regulation adopted by the Virginia Department of Education. As far as I can tell, there is no statutory requirement.</p>
<p>Can’t you get around that by not having the scores sent to your child’s high school? When my son registered to take the SAT, we left his high school information blank. You can also call and have them remove it.</p>
<p>Absolutely, JHS. It is only a regulation. There is nothing in the Virginia Code other than the authority for BOE to:</p>
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<p>[LIS</a> > Code of Virginia > 22.1-16](<a href=“Legislative Information System”>Legislative Information System)</p>
<p>I suspect schools would be ill-advised to not follow the regulations. I argued with our high school over whether or not Earth Science was a required course for graduation and won that point. I suspect if you really wanted to make an issue of it you could argue about the scores, but I’d rather be making friends with guidance than antagonizing them during the application process. I did find it interesting that the accreditation status of the school was one of the things that should not appear on the transcript.</p>
<p>^ Theoretically you should be able to have them removed. Try doing anything in a large Va public school…some things just aren’t that easy. I didn’t see that it was going to make a difference so I saved my ‘fight’ for another day/another topic. The squeaky wheel does get greased, but not if it squeaks all the time. Then it simply gets ignored.</p>
<p>note: I crossed posts w/ sabaray. We appear to have a like mind on what to argue with your GC over.</p>
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<p>LOL…not always easy in a small one either!</p>
<p>Thanks for the link. I had not been able to find that. GC couldn’t tell me anything other than it is required. It looks as if they would only have to show one test regardless of what it is. Seems to me we should still have the option to opt out. Yes, I do pick my battles very carefully this time of year!</p>
<p>I’m with reiinaz. Seems like kids should leave the school info blank when they register for ACT or SAT.</p>
<p>With my oldest D she never indicated HS so it never ended up on transcript (VA Public here too) and from our success with that we are planning on doing the same thing for D2 and S if we can. I would just rather be able to control what goes out and when and don’t have the highest faith in the transcript reading correctly either way. D2 is at a dfifferent HS than D1 was though so I don’t yet know if they do things differently. I know we’ll find out soon as she’ll be a junior testing this fall.</p>
<p>I’m not from VA, but I think that this is ridiculous. I have noticed, however, that some test optional schools remove the score from the transcript before it goes into a student’s file, if the student decides to apply as a test optional student. You can look up the individual college to find out.
I think, however, that your fight should not be with your GC, but with your Department of Education. Even though this is not statutory, your representative can help you with changing this regulation. You can request a meeting with your legislator - face to face, and then explain how some schools are now test optional, and that parents and students should have the right to decide on what information is shared; how does this representative suggest that this regulation could be changed?
If lots of people do this, the regulation could change!
Good luck!</p>
<p>Is this fairly new? I pulled a copy of D’s transcript (graduated from a VA public HS in '09) and there are NO ACT/SAT scores listed anywhere.</p>
<p>While we are on the transcript topic…I strongly recommend requesting a copy at least once every year and checking it to make sure it contains no errors. I did not ever find any on the transcript itself, but did find a math error on the school’s profile which is sent with the transcript.</p>