If a school requires that you submit your entire testing history, can you still cancel a score (ACT, SAT, AP, etc.)?
You could only cancel your SAT scores like 3 or 4 days after you took it or you can cancel the test with a sheet that the proctor gives you. If your scores has been released, then the answer is no.
The simple answer is no, you cannot cancel a score. That would defeat the entire purpose of the school requiring you to send all scores. However, there is a bit more to the situation when you look at the individual components.
Let’s start with the SAT. Like @Jr12317 said, you can only cancel your SAT scores a few days after the actual test. After that, the scores are cemented to your account. The College Board (SAT) will not allow you to cancel any scores after this point. When you go to send scores to colleges, you will still have the option of what scores you want to send, regardless of what the college asks for. Though it doesn’t seem that there’s a way for the college to know if you don’t send all scores, if they do somehow find out, they can easily reject you on account of academic dishonesty.
The ACT is a bit different. The traditional means of cancelling your scores are the same as the SAT, a few days after the exam. However, unlike the College Board, who claims to own all of your scores, ACT actually states that students own all of their test records. So, you could follow the directions listed on the ACT site to delete your test record, and the school will have no way of knowing. Again, if they do figure it out, this is most likely academic dishonesty. I assume ACT allows this because you must be a fee per score per school, as opposed to SAT which is a fee per school.
http://www.actstudent.org/faq/delete.html
The large majority of schools in this country (including the most selective) do not require you to send AP scores until after acceptance. These are self-reported on the common app. Though I wouldn’t recommend lying, most schools do not use AP scores in your review.
Yup @jamesjunkers, In some schools your SAT scores will be on your transcripts. Just be honest and send them all.
Ah, yes, forgot about that. Though not the most common practice, many schools list standardized test scores on your official transcript; any discrepancies between the transcript and what you send will obviously reflect you negatively.
Ultimately, one bad score is not going to hurt you. Even the colleges that do not allow score choice / require all scores tend to favor your highest scores and / or look at your highest across subsections; my first ACT score was 5 points lower than then my last. However, I still sent that score to all the colleges that required all of them, and I really don’t think they are thinking “Let’s judge this kid by his lower score, the higher scores must’ve been a fluke”
I should have a 2250 SAT after two sittings, but my ACT is a 28. That’s a pretty big gap, and frankly, it worries me.
You don’t need to send both test. You can send either the SAT or ACT.
So when a school says “entire testing history”, they only mean the entire history for either the SAT or the ACT, not both?
YUP, you can send the SAT but if you have taken the SAT more than once, you must send all the scores of your SAT.
No college requires your AP testing history to determine admission. A small number of colleges, NYU is one, accept AP scores in lieu of SAT, ACT, or subject tests, and if you choose the AP option you need to send official scores.
Those colleges that require all scores or entire testing history do not require that they be informed of cancelled tests, either SAT or ACT. They also do not require tests taken in 8th grade or before. What test scores the all scores colleges actually require varies among those colleges and you have to check each for its actual rules. . Examples: UPenn and Georgetown require you to send all SAT, ACT and subject test scores that you have. Stanford requires all SATs and all ACTs but you can send whatever subject tests you want to send. Yale requires either all SATs and all subject tests or, alternatively to both of those, all ACTS. There are many colleges that require all SATs or, alternatively, you can provide al, ACTs or for many just one ACT, and they have no rule on subject tests because they don’t require or recommend. In essence, check the rules of each particular college to which you intend to apply.