I’m a junior and I just took the SAT with essay this Saturday, and I have 4 free score reports to use soon as the deadline is coming up, but I am not sure if I should use them or not. I was planning on sending them to 4 “All Score” colleges on my college list: Yale, UPenn, Tufts, and Carnegie Mellon. I read an article that says you should use send scores using those free score reports to colleges that require you to send all SAT scores, so that’s why I was going to send my score to those 4 colleges. Should I take advantage of the score reports? I got a 1410 on a SAT practice test for reference.
I’d amend that statement to say that you should use the free score reports to send scores tor colleges that require all scores and to safeties, which those 4, obviously are not.
So yes, you can use to send to Yale and CMU. Penn has not required all scores for years, and Tufts “recommends” that you send all scores. So if you have 2 safeties, I’d use those in lieu of Penn and Tufts. But it’s not a big deal one way or the other, IMO.
My D who is a senior used her free score reports from her Junior year SAT to send to colleges she was interested in. who require direct score sends. She has not had to pay for sending SAT scores to any other colleges. (Some places allow you to self-report scores vs. sending official score sends.) I don’t see any issue using your free score sends to send them to interested colleges.
Don’t the schools “requiring” you to send all scores let you choose between ACT and SAT? Unless you absolutely know as a first semester high school junior that you will just be submitting the SAT to colleges next year, you shouldn’t send anything right now. Especially since you haven’t even seen your score yet.
Colleges love the free score-send feature but not sure it truly benefits students. If College Board / ACT REALLY wanted to help families save money, they’d allow the offer to extend past when your score is available.
Depends on the college. Georgetown, for one, requires all scores from both if you’ve taken both. Now, the OP did not indicate Georgetown as a target college, but then, neither did s/he say s/he will take or has taken the ACT.
I did not take the ACT - I may in the future, but it is unlikely because I feel more comfortable with the SAT.
I am a bit confused, because it appears that UPenn and Tuft’s score policies “recommend” that you should send all SAT scores, I saw a SAT score use policy PDF made by CB, which states that UPenn and Tufts both require all scores. I’m probably going to assume that they don’t, because the SAT policies stated from the direct source (UPenn and Tufts) are probably more accurate.
Here is the link:
https://secure-media.collegeboard.org/digitalServices/pdf/professionals/sat-score-use-practices-participating-institutions.pdf
Which is similar to what I said earlier.
What a college requires may change with every admissions cycle. A secondary source, like the CB. may not have updated the info. The primary source - the college - supersedes anything you read (even if I wrote it 
). When in doubt, feel free to contact the college to confirm.
That’s the plan!
So I have Yale, Carnegie Mellon, and UMass Amherst (my only safety). I have one score report left and no other colleges on my list require all scores (Georgetown is not on my list, by the way)…should I even bother? And thank you for all the advice so far, it really helps.
Sure - it’s free. If you want to add Tufts or Penn for the 4th, go ahead. YMMV, but I could not be bothered trying to make a spreadsheet of what I sent where. It’s wasted time and effort IMO. If the college says they look at the best scores, then they look at the best scores. Good luck.
^ I have a slightly different take than @skieurope, although not sure there is one “correct” answer here. I would never send a score w/o seeing it first, nor would I send anything before it’s time to apply. Regarding the latter, I’ve seen a score or two go “missing” because it was sent “early” as part of a free score send.
It’s true that G-Town (not even on your radar) requires all scores and they also require scores directly from the testing agency. That’s about as strict as it gets and it’s by no means the norm. My son is applying to a variety of selective schools and a good number of them allow self-reporting this year. For OP’s schools, Yale, Tufts, and CMU either allow self-reporting on the CA or allow your counselor to verify your score report and send it along. Both those options are free; you only need to send “official” scores to the school you choose to attend. Only Penn requires scores directly from the testing agency during the admissions process. So, IMHO, it’s possible to hold off on sending anything via Free Score-Send as a junior and still spend only a fraction of what you’d expect to next year. For all you know, Penn will change its policy next year and allow self-reporting.
Good point.
I doubt any college will view such as the applicant’s fault, though. And it can be easily rectified.
Agreed, and I can see your perspective.