Can you pick which SAT scores you want to send to college? If you only want certain ones can you send those or do all of them go to your college?
It depends on the school and if you do or do not select “send my scores directly” before you actually take the test. In order to be in control of what schools see certain scores, don’t select send my scores directly when you register for the SAT test date. Some schools specifically require you to send the scores from all of your test dates. Other schools require that you may only send scores from a single sitting of one test date. Most schools now allow you to send scores from multiple test dates allowing them to use the highest score from each of your math, reading and writing scores. This is called super scoring. Check on the application requirements page for each of the schools you are planning to apply to.
There is an option on the College Board website called Score Choice.It allows you to pick which test date results you would like to have sent to the school after you yourself have seen the scores. Let’s say you took the SAT back in April and your scores were math 650, reading 620 and writing 720. You took it again in June and your scores were math 690, reading 580 and writing 710. You decided to retake it in October and your scores were math 640, reading 630 and writing 700. You would go to your College Board account and choose to have all three test dates sent. The admissions office would use your June math score of 690, your October reading score of 630 and your April writing score of 720. They would not consider the lower score from each of those test dates, allowing you to show yourself in the best light.
College Board, the SAT company, will send all scores it has for you in one order but you can choose to withhold one or more of your tests when doing the order. However, it does not allow you to withhold particular section scores from a single test. Most colleges allow you to send whatever tests you want to send, although many of those recommend or encourage (but do not require) sending all SAT scores because they superscore the tests, meaning they use to detemrine admission your highest section scores from the multiple SAT tests. There are about 21 colleges (13 if you count the 9 UCs as one) that have a rule that requires you to send “all scores” but what that rule actually requires varies among those colleges:
Georgetown requires all SAT, SAT subject tests, and ACT scores.
Yale and Duke require either all ACTs or, alternatively, all SAT and subject test scores; if you submit any SAT or any subject test scores, you must submit both all SATs and all subject tests.
Cornell is somewhat ambiguous but appears to require all SATs or alternatively all ACTs, plus all subject test scores.
Stanford and Penn require both all SATs and all ACTs, but you can send whatever subject test scores you want to send.
Carnegie Mellon and Harvey Mudd require either all SATs or all ACTs, plus all subject tests
Rice and Tufts require all SATs if you send any SATs but you can send the ACTs or subject tests you want to send.
UCs’ require all SATs if you send any SAT but it appears you can send whatever ACTs or subject tests you want to send.
Barnard’s rule is ambiguous. It says it “expects” applicants to submit all scores, but does that while mentioning submitting either SAT or ACT and saying nothing about subject tests. It then declares it follows the spirit of score choice. (Of note is that Barnard is connected to Columbia which dropped its anti-score choice rule more than a year ago.)
Syracuse requires all SAT scores if you send SAT but you can send whatever ACTs you want to send (it does not require or consider subject tests).
Withholding scores when ordering scores sent by College Board assures that College Board will do nothing to even tell the college you took a test, but it does not guarantee the college will not learn of the scores. There are many high schools that put all your scores on the offical high school transcript that it sends to colleges and thus you need to check if your high school does so before deciding to withhold scores when ordering them through College Board.
Okay! Thank you so much
UC allow score choice for subject tests.
Do you have a source for Harvey Mudd requiring all scores? I can’t find anything on their website to that effect.
I know Cornell wants you to send all SAT/ACT scores. Sending SAT subject tests depends on the college you’re applying to. If the college you’re applying to requires subject tests then they want all of them.
As to the Harvey Mudd question, in late August when I checked, HM had a clear and easily findable statement on its anti-score choice policy on its site. Its prior year catalogues also had it, see https://www.hmc.edu/registrar/academic-catalogue/ and open a catalogue and search for “score choice.” My link to the page from late August now goes to nothing and I also cannot find any kind of all scores rule in the current application materials on line. Thus, it appears HM may have now joined the rank of sane colleges that allow score choice. College Board adopted score choice in March 2009, and a number of colleges immediatley threw a hissy fit and adopted anti-score choice policies. Since then a number that adopted such rules have dropped them and switched to accepting score choice. I had thought Pomona was the latest one which did so in August but apparently HM may have now joined that group more recently. Since that initial flurry in March 2009 when several colleges adotped anti-score choice rules, only one college, Duke, has adopted such a policy, and for no explained reason, it switched from allowing score choice to having an all scores rule only about two months ago.
As to Cornell, it is correct that some of its colleges do not require subject tests but most will be applying to the Arts & Sciences or Engineering colleges which do require them.
open https://www.hmc.edu/registrar/wp-content/uploads/sites/12/2015/11/Harvey-Mudd-College-Catalogue-2015-2016.pdf, on page 19,:
Standardized Tests– Every first-year applicant is required to take the SAT or the ACT
exam (including the writing component). All applicants are also required to take two SAT
Subject Tests: Math Level 2 and a second exam of the candidate’s choice. Early Decision
I applicants may take the SAT or ACT Reasoning Test and/or Subject Tests as late as the
November test date. Applicants for ED II may submit scores from tests taken as late as
December. Regular Decision applicants may take the SAT tests as late as the January test date
or the ACT exam as late as the December test date. The Admission Committee will only accept
and review official score reports submitted by the College Board or ACT Inc. Our policy
requires students to send all SAT and/or ACT scores.
Does this mean that HMC still don’t allow score choice?
I don’t see how that’s hard to understand. No, they don’t accept score choice.
The problem I am having is the same as the OP’s in that I cannot find any statement on the HM site that requires all scores for those applying now. Prior to this year all applicants were subject to an all scores rule. That 2015-16 catalogue cited above by summerain is the one for last year’s appicants and this year’s freshman class, and there were other easily finadable pages on last year’s website that made clear that HM required either all SATs or all ACTs. In fact, those pages were still there in Aug of this year and now they have all disappeared. I have been unable to even find a 2016-17 catalogue on the site or any reference elsewhere to an all scores rule in relation to this year’s applicants.
It seems that they require all SAT and ACT scores. I am not sure what the policy is for Subject tests.
That was part of the statement in the required items section on the admissions webpages that is now gone, which used to say that either all SAT or all ACT, plus all subject tests were required, even though the catalogue addressed SAT and ACT. I have sent an email to HM asking for clarity on its current all scores position. If I get an answer, I will post it here.
@drusba wrote: “Withholding scores when ordering scores sent by College Board assures that College Board will do nothing to even tell the college you took a test, but it does not guarantee the college will not learn of the scores. There are many high schools that put all your scores on the offical high school transcript that it sends to colleges and thus you need to check if your high school does so before deciding to withhold scores when ordering them through College Board.” Does this mean that if your school does put SAT scores on the transcript you can’t take advantage of score choice? Or are you saying that if you are trying to hide a score from a school that requires all scores to be sent, this could trip you up?
@uesmomof2 I believe you have to communicate with your HS and tell them not to put test scores on your transcript. Also, since the policy for score choice is so confusing from school to school, I think they should be clear on what they want on their website. If they don’t specify it, I reserve the right to do whatever benefits the application.
Thanks, I just realize that I have looked 2015~2016 catalogue :>
uesmomof2, it is the latter issue. College Board always allows score choice, even when it puts up the warning when you attempt to order scores sent that the college requires all scores. That the high school may put all your scores on the the high school transcript simply means that exercising score choice with College Board will not prevent the college from learning of the scores if the high school transcript has them. As noted above, in that situation you can request that the scores be left off the transcript but as some have reported in the past, there can be high schools that refuse to do that.
Following up on my post above, Harvey Mudd has responded to my inquiry and states nothing has changed and its all scores rule remains the same, all SATs or all ACTs (it did not mention subject tests in the response).
My S applied last year. He had taken 3 subject tests. He specifically emailed the admissions office to find out if he should send 2 or 3 (since only 2 are required). They stated ALL tests must be submitted. (This included all subject tests).
In my email to HMC, I did not specifically ask about subject tests but was asking the more general question of whether HMC was no longer requiring all scores because there was nothing on the admission webpages of the website stating the rule, and I got the answer I mentioned above. Priot to this Fall, the admissions webpages actualy made clear that all subjec tests were also required.
My email apparently moved HMC to action because today its website has changed and on the admissions webpage for Required Application Materials, it has changed the section for “SAT or ACT” to state “We require a student’s complete testing record as official score reports from College Board and/or ACT.” https://www.hmc.edu/admission/apply/first-year-students/application-materials/ Before today, it simply said it required either SAT or ACT. The change is itself still a little unclear, particularly as it relates to subject tests, but it does indicate an all scores rule applies.