Is the pricing fair?

Test Preparation
1

<p>I understand that to put out the SAT and ACT it probably costs a great deal of money for their respective publishers. But they are supposed to be non-profits that are generally supposed to provide a product for the well-being of the community, in this case the college bound student community.</p>

<p>However, why must they charge $10 to send score reports to EACH college or university for EACH test that was taken by a student? Especially since the score reports sent to the college are probably in electronic form. There is no need for for such excessive pricing.</p>

<p>Not to even mention that many private universities now require the CSS Profile from College Board to even be considered for qualification for need-based financial aid. The profile costs $9 just to fill out, and an additional $16 for EACH college that it is to be sent out to. This is outrageous since the people who are mostly are going to be needing to fill this out are low income students.</p>

<p>For students who are applying to over a dozen colleges, the costs really do add up. </p>

<p>I, for one, am applying to roughly seventeen schools. I did the math, and in the end it will cost me over eight-hundred dollars to apply. That is being hopeful.</p>

<p>What I am asking is: Is this system fair?</p>

2

<p>no its not…try to get fee waivers but sats are quite expensive. :(</p>

3

<p>don’t apply to 17 colleges if you have no money…</p>

<p>It costs $800 because 17 different people have to read you entire high school career.</p>

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<p>[AETR:</a> Revealing the standardized testing industry’s big profits](<a href=“http://www.aetr.org/big-profits.php]AETR:”>http://www.aetr.org/big-profits.php)</p>

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<p>GreedIsGood: I have fee waivers for all of the college applications, but the $800 is JUST for sending in all of my test scores and CSS profile. You probably have ties with NYU . . . just kidding.</p>

<p>But yeah, I have even read that ACT Inc.'s non-profit status might be revoked. There should definitely be government sponsorship, or at least significant aid for testing agencies. Maybe like the system that is being used by China.</p>

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<p>You are among the reasons CB is raking in the $. Why are you applying to 17 schools if you are budget constrained???</p>

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<p>Because an education is a worthwhile investment.</p>

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<p>I’m also <em>considering</em> seventeen schools.
Whether I go through with that… depends on what happens with questbridge I suppose. I was hoping it would be easier as far as safeties go because I could drop several if I got into a match/reach EA, but questbridge won’t let me apply EA so it’s fine I suppose.</p>

<p>I may very well end up applying to all seventeen schools. And the cost of it all doesn’t seem very fair from where I’m standing but I don’t know how much it costs the collegeboard to put these tests out.</p>

<p>I would think that they could charge what they want for tests to cover the writing, publishing, and distributing fees. They already get plenty of free advertising so that shouldn’t be a concern. But reporting fees seem excessive especially considering when nearly every college accepts electronic scores. They should at least scale the fees based on paper vs electronic vs rush-reporting.</p>

<p>What has helped though is fee waivers. Four free reports when taking the test + four free with the fee waiver = 8 free reports. Then 9 more at $10 a pop if I go through with that. The ACT is also going to be a pain since I’ll probably be sending schools both.</p>