Experience sharing - after my son applied to 4 California State U campuses in Nov -
He setup his own account on each of the campus portal once he received information from college. When he checked the Application Status, under the “To Do List”, he saw that “Test scores are required” and a deadline of Jan 2017 was given. Very strange, because they were sent back in Sep. He double-checked and sent an email to find out whether the test scores could be re-sent or re-released to colleges. The answer was No and he had to contact each individual campus to sort things out. Panic! As this was our first experience in college application, we didn’t know what went wrong. Within our control, we think the most important steps would be Send the Application and Request/Send Official Test Scores. We frantically researched CC and Google on what could possibly go wrong. Do we now pay to resend?
This is what we learned:
- When taking your standardized test even as far as back as PSAT, be consistent with your registered name. Full name.
- When you send the test scores to colleges, the college will load and hold onto them in the database. Once they receive your application, the matching to application file begins automatically.
- When they do matching, they use Name, possibly Address and High School. So, if the name is inconsistent (one with middle name and one without), the fall-out will be marked as “unmatched”. This status causes “test scores required” to show up in To Do List.
- When you send email to college Admission Offices to address a problem, we are told by our Counselor to do it in one email – no need to send individual emails.
- Scan your test score reports (from all/preferred sittings) together as one attachment with your email. The admission office will use it to find your items in their test score database.
- Mention following data in the email for each college to identify you: “First-time Freshmen”, “Fall 2017”, your individual college provided ID (most critical), name, also your address, email, phone, school name. (for this time we did not quote social sec id)
- A couple of colleges were super-efficient and the To Do List item was removed within hours we submited the email and we saw “Official Test Score Received”.
- This email was sent to all colleges at the same time - even there was nothing under the To Do List for one college. For that college, we noticed a 'Receipt confirmation for Test Scores' which was not shown before.
Lastly a tip on for good record keeping habits: use an excel spreadsheet to record: userid & password to portal, link, college assigned ID, answers to security questions, email of admission office, phone no of admission office (one even has a remark on preferred college browser!)
Hope you find the above useful! I hope the other 2 campuses will act positively later. If not, my son will call to follow up. And good luck with your application too!