I tried searching here to see if this has been discussed or answered, so my apologies if I missed it. My son registered for the SAT and during the registration process he said there was something about having 10 days or so to choose which colleges (up to four free) to notify regarding his results.
I read through the CB site and I’m a little confused on this issue. Is this just a marketing thing? What if a student isn’t sure where he plans to apply? Would like to have this explained a bit better, thanks!
Yes, you can send 4 free score reports to colleges every time you test. It is completely optional.
In our case, we did not send any free reports. We did not have our colleges narrowed down, and I wanted to see the score before we sent it. When we did apply to colleges, we paid $12 per report to have them sent to the colleges.
IMHO, the free score reports are for those who feel confident in their future scores. We chose to forgo the free reports and pay the $12 for individual resorts. That way we could also use score choice as needed. By waiting we could also see scores to help us decide reasonable choices. For us, although the $12 was pesky and did add up, it wasn’t enough to deter us from paying it.
IMO, They offer this so that people don’t complain that they have to pay to send their scores. It’s pathetic though. I would prefer TWO free SAT reports sent AFTER you know the scores than 4 free reports without knowing anything! An ideal scenario would be to pay a fee for “an official SAT report” and then be able to forward it to as many school as needed/wanted. The college board is making so much money off of this (and it’s their business, they can do what they want), but then I feel that the college should say, a digital copy of your score report is ample.
I didn’t understand this at first either. I agree with @rofikicafe that it would be nice to be able to SEE the scores first and then be able to send out a few free ones. DD was taking both the SAT and the ACT, and we needed both sets of scores in hand before deciding which ones to send out to schools.