Wy do colleges require official score reports?

Test Preparation
1

<p>Just curious, but why do most colleges require official ACT/SAT/SAT II score reports? Wouldn't it be cheaper for students to self-report their test scores and submit official verification after they have been accepted?</p>

2

<p>Because the College Board wants so lol. They LOVE to take money from students!</p>

3

<p>But why would a school want to accept a student on self reported scores…which is basically an honor system…and then have to rescind acceptances of those that reported “inaccurately”?</p>

4

<p>The same reason they want a transcript even though you report a GPA; trust, but verify.</p>

5

<p>A question on this - do colleges get the full score report, or just your numbers for each you took?</p>

6

<p>Colleges see what you see.</p>

7

<p>But most schools require unofficial transcripts sent directly from the high school prior to acceptance, then official transcripts after…this is not the same as someone self-reporting a test score…</p>

8

<p>Some schools (I think I remember seeing this on Stanford’s website, for instance) will allow low-income students to self-report scores. They will ask for an official score report if the student attends, obviously. </p>

<p>As others have said, they want official verification upfront (in most cases) so they don’t have to waste time checking scores later. The process is probably a lot more streamlined when they receive the official report with the rest of the application as opposed to the small window of time between May 1st and orientation sessions. </p>

9

<p>Many years ago, the majority of colleges either allowed self-reporting to be verified by an offical report from College Board or ACT after admission (UCs did so until about five years ago) or, more often, accepted scores provided on your official high school transcript, which almost all high schools provided on the transcripts at the time, and did not even require an offical report from College Board or ACT after you were admitted. That majority which accepted self-reported or transcripts scores has over the years become the low minority. The desire to verify scores up front is only a minor reason for any change. The most important rreason is that the score reports sent to the colleges provide a lot more information than just the scores. Those questionarre responses you make in the test application are summarized in the report. Go here for summary of what is included in a score report sent to colleges: (a) for SAT <a href=“http://media.collegeboard.com/digitalServices/pdf/sat/sat-college-electronic-score-report-data-layout-2013-14.pdf”>http://media.collegeboard.com/digitalServices/pdf/sat/sat-college-electronic-score-report-data-layout-2013-14.pdf&lt;/a&gt; ; and (b) for ACT <a href=“http://www.act.org/aap/pdf/collegereport.pdf”>http://www.act.org/aap/pdf/collegereport.pdf&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;