Hi everyone, so I am a senior this year and took the SAT for the first time last week (Oct 6 SAT) and just found out that I could send my score to up to 4 colleges for free? Can someone explain this to me, why would i send my score to these 4 colleges when my application will require me to state my SAT? Also what happens if I want to send my score to more than 4 colleges? What are the benefits of sending my score to colleges now? Thank you.
Most colleges require that scores directly sent from College Board (self-reported scores are not sufficient). Read and follow the requirements of each college you apply to. If anything is confusing to you look at the admissions website of each college and if necessary call admissions to clarify what is required.
Most schools ask that the scores be sent directly by the testing service to prevent self-misreporting. Doing so when you take it will save you some money as you will have to pay a fee to forward the scores afterwards . Many people don’t take this option as they prefer to know the score prior to reporting it. If you want to take this option now and send it to more colleges you will have to pay the fee for those extra colleges.
Many colleges require you to provide official scores from the testing agency for purpose of determining admission and, for those, simply listing your scores in your application for admission is not sufficient – the college will not make an admission decision until it receives the offical scores. You can list four colleges for free in your test registration but for that Oct test it must be done by no later than tomorrow, Oct 15. If you want to add more than 4 colleges now, you can do so, but you will have to pay for any extra ones the usual fee, $12 per college, that you would pay to send scores after scores are released.
Sending scores via listing colleges in your test registration results in your scores being sent before you know what the scores are – they are usually sent to colleges one to two days before they are even released to you on line. That is considered by many the biggest downside because you cannot reverse the process if you learn your scores are not good, and many thus prefer to wait to see the scores before ordering them (at $12 per college). Use of the free send method is actually necessary in some cases to assure scores get to the college on time, e.g., a number of colleges accept even Nov scores for early decision, where you get your admission decision in mid-Dec, but if you want to assure the scores get to a college on time you need to designate the college in your test registration as one to automatically receive scores.
Bottom line: the only benefits of using the free score reports are to save money and get scores to the colleges very quickly when they are released. If you do not need to save the money and you are not facing a quick deadline for getting scores to colleges, you may consider waiting.
Hi, so I am applying to the cal states and had a question about score reporting
For cal states:
https://www2.calstate.edu/apply/freshman/getting_into_the_csu/pages/admission-requirements.aspx
“Once you’ve taken the SAT test, you should list the Cal State Apply institution code, so that Cal State Apply can store your scores for any CSU campus to retrieve. The Cal State Apply institution code for the SAT is 3594.”
So since I have (4) free colleges that I can send my SAT Scores too, I would only have to used (1) of those to send my scores to the cal state institution because from there all of the cal states I apply to can get the score from there? Like, say for example I’m applying to 10 cal states, would I need to send my SAT Score to EACH one, or can I just send my SAT to the one location (the Cal State Institution) and from there when I apply each cal state I apply they can get the score from that one location meaning I can save the other 3 for other colleges? Thank you!!
Also one more question, I know some cal states are more selective than others and so if I send my SAT score, which I don’t know the results of, to this institution, can I choose NOT to send the SAT score to certain cal states that may have higher standards than the others I am applying for? Say for example, I score an average SAT and apply to every cal state using that SAT, but say my SAT is lower than CSU Long Beach’s SAT, can I choose to send this SAT score to every OTHER Cal state but Long Beach and just send Long Beach the November one? Thanks!!
For the Cal States, you need only send scores once to the Cal State Apply institution code and then all CSU’s you apply to will have access to the score, and no, you cannot withhold that score from one CSU once you have supplied it.
Note, if you are considering the UCs, the process is similar. You can send scores to one UC and all to which you will apply will have access to it.
Cal States Superscore so it usually is to your advantage to send all scores.
Thank you both!