In addition to Super Scoring, Score Choice is an important aspect of Digital SAT and ACT testing—one that can really work in your favor, if you know how to navigate it.
Whether you’re currently working on your college applications, or a future applicant, or the parent of someone in one of those categories…today’s blog post is for you!
That’s right: today I’m going to draw on my extensive test prep guru credentials to teach you how Score Choice works.
Article Contents
1. Watch this article as a video
3. Why do the College Board and ACT offer Score Choice?
4. Which colleges allow Score Choice?
a. Will colleges find out if you’re supposed to send all your scores, but don’t?
5. Conclusion
Video version of this article:
Score Choice Definition
Score Choice is something every college can decide to opt in to (or out of). If a college permits Score Choice, that means you’re allowed to send only the scores from SAT or ACT test dates that you want that school to see. So, you would not have to show that admissions committee the performances that aren’t to your liking!
Because here’s what happens to a lot of students: you take the SAT multiple times because you want to generate as high of a Super Score as possible. Maybe you take the SAT in March, May and in June. In March, you reach your best-yet Reading and Writing score. In June, you finally get the Math score you wanted. However, the May test is…not so stellar. In fact, you got your LOWEST YET section scores in May in both sections! Maybe you were feeling ill, or distracted by a fight with your mom….whatever the cause, you messed it up big time. Happens to the best of us!
Enter Score Choice. For the colleges on your list that engage this option, you can decide to send ONLY your March and June scores to those schools...while pretending that May never happened.
Why do the College Board and ACT offer Score Choice?
At first glance, Score Choice might seem like an act of pure charity, a case of the testing powers-that-be throwing a bone to anxious test-takers. After all, if you never have to send that score from the day you got a not-so-hot score, that makes you look a LOT better to admissions committees….and there’s a lot less to be nervous about going into a given test sitting!
But….does it seem a bit sus to you that the College Board and ACTStudent.org would be so generous for no apparent reason?
Well, your instincts are good. Like most changes that the Digital SAT and ACT creators willingly make, Score Choice actually benefits THEM, too.
Back in the day, before Score Choice was born, you would ask the College Board to “send your scores” to X University. You’d pay one fee, and then ALL your test scores that you ever took with the College Board (the SAT, the now-discontinued SAT IIs, etc.) would all be sent over to that college. Yes, this sucked if you had a not-so-hot test day, but at least the process was uncomplicated—and you only had to pay one fee.
NOWADAYS, though, if you want to send three different test date scores—but effectively erase that fourth test date where you bombed—you’ll pay a fee to send the first one, then a separate fee to send the second score, then a third fee to send the third score. You WON’T pay a fourth fee because...you didn’t WANT to send THAT score, remember?
So at the end of the day, Score Choice allows the SAT and ACT to collect 2x or even 3x the score submission fees! Pretty clever of them, eh?
Which Colleges Allow Score Choice?
Though the trend is that more and more colleges allow Score Choice, you still need to do your own research to figure out the policy of each and every school on your college list to be sure. There are still a handful of colleges that “require all scores” or “recommend sending all scores.” What do all of these different turns of phrase really mean? Well:
Generally, if a school’s admissions website/application portal says they “recommend” that you send all scores... just send the ones that benefit you. Treat this like Score Choice. “Recommending” is NOT the same as “requiring,” after all. Plus, why pay an extra fee to let the college see a score that doesn’t show you in the best light, anyways?
If, on the other hand, the college “requires” that you send all scores—just do what they say and send them all.
Will colleges know if you don't send all your SAT scores?
With regard to that second case above—colleges that don’t do Score Choice—my ACT/SAT tutoring students sometimes retort: “But Kristina, how will they know if I leave a test date out?...especially if I’m the one paying for each score that gets sent, and the college isn’t in charge of grabbing the score...how would they actually find out?”
Frankly, I just have a bad gut feeling about taking a chance with such a high-stakes matter as your college destiny. And hey, my knowledge and intuitions about that topic have been getting exceptional testing and admissions results for my clients for nearly a decade and a half.
If a college actually puts it in writing that they require something for their application, you should do that something. Who knows how and to what degree the colleges and the College Board and ACTStudent.org might share info amongst themselves! And if you ever got caught NOT sending a required score, your application would definitely get tossed into the trash. I, personally, would NOT want to risk it! When I’m working with a student and this question comes up, we never take the gamble.
So that's everything you need to know about Score Choice!
With this post in your back pocket, you’re one step closer to the end of your test prep journey…and to a “yes” from your dream school!
As always, if you find any aspect of college admissions or test prep perplexing, you’re welcome to enlist me, the test prep mage, in your quest. I’ll draw up a personalized test prep timeline and map FOR you…so you can snag the treasure chest that is admission to your dream school.
