What are your thoughts on identifying colleges to receive ACT scores when your child registers to take the test (when it is still free to do so, but your child doesn’t know what his / her score will be), versus sending scores later (when you have to pay a fee, but your child knows how s/he did on the test)?
S18 took the ACT in October and got a respectable score but had room for improvement. He took it again this past Saturday and isn’t sure he did any better. He hasn’t designated any schools to receive his scores from either sitting. I know we can still designate a few to receive the February score for free if we designate by Thursday, but we’re going back and forth on whether it’s better to do it now or later.
This annoys me to no end. Why exactly is free to send when you don’t know the scores but you have to pay afterwards? Am I missing something? What’s really the point? What does the college board saves by sending the scores in the one case versus the other?
Thanks, everyone! I think we’ll probably go with our gut and wait til we see the scores before we send any scores to schools. It’s good to know we’re not the only ones doing that.
Do you have any state schools or schools where the score (assumed similar to first one), would be in the upper level of applicants? Families in our area use this strategy and then only resend if there was a subsequent increase that would affect a potential merit scholarship.
@jcmom716 I think his first score would get him in at the state flagship and at his other safeties. But right, I think another 2 points because will bring a substantial jump in merit.
If there are any schools that require you to send all scores on his list of potentials, you could send now to them as I think it costs $12 to send each ACT score sitting.
Second the idea of sending to a safety (maybe a directional if not confident about the flagship).
Clemson University told us to send them all. They will only look at the highest and don’t care how lowest your low is… We always sent them the “free” way to colleges my children were interested in. To our surprise, based on the scores that were sent, my son received provisional early acceptance.
Find out which schools require you to submit “ALL” scores and certainly request sending those during the free phase. For the other schools, wait until you have multiple scores and then pick and choose which ones you want to send based on the policies of each school (for example, superscoring). Keep in mind that some test-optional schools will still need to see test scores to award merit scholarships.
My son only took tests one time, and scores were sent automatically to schools to which he applied. Both for SAT and ACT. No regrets. Except that he told me he probably sent his SAT score to UIC rather than University of Chicago. So we had to send that separately. There was no reason not to send his scores to all schools since he already knew from PSAT that his SAT would be very high. He was a NMSF.
My daughter also sent her scores automatically to schools to which she applied, but also decided to take SAT a second time and scores went automatically to the same schools. There was some improvement in overall scores but not enough to matter to the type of colleges she was applying to – art schools. Her ACT was equivalent to her SAT.
Would there be any benefit to a student sending ACT scores after the student knows and is pleased? (But before the actual application process). Particularly if it was a very high score?
@Postmodern No difference but don’t wait until the application deadline to request scores. There is a delay from the time you request the ACT (or SAT) scores to be sent and when the schools actually receives them. This depends on how frequently the particular school wants the scores from the testing services. In my experience, some schools receive scores 3 times a week while others may only receive them once a month. In the worst case scenario, you may meet the application deadline but scores would not arrive until after the cutoff for all supporting materials (transcript, letters of recommendations, etc.).