Hello. I was hoping to get some opinions. My daughter got a 34 on her ACT and is submitting that test with her applications. I noticed on the last page of her HS transcript it shows her SAT score of 1390 from last school year. I remember that when she took that exam it was a very challenging week for our family because my other teenage daughter was battling cancer and was having some tests done. I hate for this SAT to disadvantage her as she will be applying to a couple of Ivy league schools next week. The HS has told us they can’t remove it. Do you think this will really work against her? She has an unweighted gpa of 4.0 and a weighted academic gpa of 5.0.
No. If the college says they consider the best score, then they consider the best score. Don’t look for conspiracy theories. And a song-and-dance explanation is not needed. But I hope all goes well with the one daughter’s treatment and with the other daughters admissions journey.
The language of can’t is interesting to me, I wonder if that has ever been properly challenged? My kids scores are also on their transcripts, but not to their disadvantage. I would like to see why these scores are reported by the school and how/why they are given the info if it is from a non school sitting.
Thank you for your response Sybylla. The counselor tried but the system wouldn’t allow her to remove it. It appears ACT/SAT reporting on HS transcripts isn’t as uncommon as I first thought. Thinking about it more I think it’ll be ok for her but it is something for students to be aware of.
Interesting but I can see how this would be common. When my first HS issued my transcript back in the day, they printed my IQ on it!
There’s can’t and then there’s won’t.
Can’t being a systemic issue as the OP describes.Won’t being school policy. While one can challenge school policy, the likelihood of resolution in the student’s favor before app deadlines is small. Although, I suppose some might take the long view with the view to help students in future years. Regardless, it won’t impact admissions, so I’m not sure this is the issue to fall on one’s sword for.
Personally, when I was in HS, I spent the time challenging stupid rules like “This class is only available to seniors” when the course is not at capacity, and I’ve met the prereqs, and it’s not replacing a HS graduation requirement. YMMV.
Students at our HS successfully got the standardized test scores removed from the transcript…because some were applying to test optional schools…and let’s just say, their scores were not going to be submitted!
Some of the reporting these test scores on the transcript is old policy from before test optional schools list grew and grew. Perhaps if you hit it from that angle, your school will remove those scores.
It is in the colleges best interest to consider and use her best score. It makes the college look good to say admitted students received the highest average.
Indeed. There is also a potential privacy issue as the score is really your D’s. It has ZERO to do with the school district, and a complaint could be made that they don’t have the legal authority to be sending it out without your permission.
Yeah, they think that they are performing a service, but it is really unnecessary since you have to submit official scores anyway.
But probably not worth making a case out of. It is in the college’s own best interest to report only the highest score since it makes them look better.
fwiw: I’ve always told my kids to leave the HS code blank. Too bad if they don’t receive a score report. They don’t need it.
Yes to all of this. The test optional applications are another good point, and with over 1,000 test optional schools now this is an issue for nearly every high school.
FWIW, in our school district (national top 10 public) there are no test scores reported on any interim transcripts. They will also let the interim transcript reflect the GPA the student wants: weighted GPA only-OK!, unweighted GPA only -OK!, both GPAs - OK! This flexibility was a consequence of counselor and family input----it’s in everyone’s best interest to have the transcript best reflect the student’s academic record.
The school is currently working with the state, which wants state mandated SAT test scores to be on final transcripts, and the HS and community are both strongly against that…will be interesting to see what happens.
Would the system allow her to correct (edit) it?
That is, what if hypothetically there was an error in data entry. Let’s say that a kid’s SAT was 1510 but numbers were transposed and it was entered as 1150 - a perfectly valid score, but a huge difference in percentile rank. (Or even the other way around – a kid whose actual score was was 1150 would probably be delighted with the error, but it would be very inaccurate information to show up on a high school transcript).
So is there a way to fix that?
And if there is a way to edit (but not delete) the field — perhaps there is a way to solve the problem by entering null data – that is, to see whether the system would accept an entry of 0-0-0-0. (Which would obviously be understood by a human reader to reflect lack of information, not an actual test score).
I’d add that I am in agreement with the others that this is unlikely to impact admissions – but at the same time I also do see it as a problem for students applying to test optional school — and I do see a lot of potential harm if there isn’t a way to correct inaccurate entries.
IIRC…my kids had their SAT scores sent to their high schools…thus the HS could use them. I don’t think there was a need for separate permission to do so on the transcript.
But really…what kid or parent would think NOT to have the HS receive these scores? None.
But really…go from the test optional angle. That’s how we got the SAT and ACT scores removed from the HS transcript.
Me and Xiggi, our former testing guru. 
(Actually, that was one of xiggy’s pet peeves.)
I do think most parents haven’t even discussed this sending to the school with their kids.
Anyway…back to the OP.
I really do think you have a better chance of getting these scores removed by showing the Fairtest site to the GC, and principal…and saying clearly that having these scores on the transcript is not an official reporting…and is not in keeping with NOT sending scores to test optional schools.
And as an FYI to parents. Get a copy of your kid’s transcript before it’s sent off to colleges. Proofread it for errors. Make sure the SAT or ACT score is accurate, and grades. We found several errors on one of our kid’s transcript and they had to be corrected.
Thank you for your suggestions!