<p>Veteran CCers, Is there any problem with asking for SAT scores to be sent to chosen schools before the applications themselves have been submitted? Senior D is considering having her (very good) scores sent now, before she retakes in October, but she’s not yet completed applications. (If her October scores are even better, obviously she’d send those later, but we’re wondering about her options to ‘look’ as good as possible!) </p>
<p>Do ‘homeless’ score reports get shuffled off to some kind of admissions office limbo, never to be seen again?</p>
<p>I understand that generally, receipt of the scores causes the school to open a file for your D, to which the app would be added. There shouldn’t be a problem. If a school “loses” them, they’ll tell you that her app is incomplete, and you can just send them again.</p>
<p>My daughter had her SAT scores sent more than a month ago, before she completed any applications. </p>
<p>Last weekend, she completed the applications for several colleges and submitted them. Today, she received messages from two of those colleges saying that she could check the status of her application online. In both cases, the SAT scores were there.</p>
<p>So it appears that in her case, at least, submitting SAT scores early was not a problem.</p>
<p>My son also sent his SAT scores over a month ago, and has had the same experience. In fact, he’s received several communications from schools he sent his scores to, including one offering him a priority application, all of which make it clear they have his scores and are expecting to receive his app to go with them. It shouldn’t be a problem at all, and you can resend scores later if they’re even better.</p>
<p>On the other hand, if she’s retaking the SATs this month, and you think she’ll do even better this time, and there aren’t any schools she’s applying to early with pre-October-SAT-reporting-date deadlines (ARE there even any such schools?), you might wait and save the $9 per school and just send them once. All scores up to and including the Oct. scores would be sent, so if the earlier scores are better, those would show up on the report also.</p>
<p>My S had his score set to the State U he wanted to attend when he took the SAT as a Jr. He figured it was free so why not. He’s a good student and a legacy so was pretty confident about the score being good enough. When he actually applied to the school 9 months later his score was sitting there waiting for his app. </p>
<p>He found out he was admitted just before taking the Oct. SAT in Sr. year. he went ahead with the SAT even though he didn’t have to. His score went up 40 points so he sent it in to bolster his standing for scholarships. Someone in the financial aid office advised we do this as some scholarships have “cut-off” scores that are not really made public. He ended up with 2 merit scholarships.</p>
<p>Not only is it routine to open a file (with just scores, or scores + separate recs, even) before an application has been received, in some cases (apparently), the College has a hard time letting go, LOL. I mean, in our case, did we have reverse-Tufts Syndrome? (They loved D so badly they never dropped her?) In spring semester of her freshman yr. at college, she was still getting mail from Tufts – having originally had scores sent there but never applied-, & even though she never indicated interest in taking a gap year. Who knows? Maybe they thought she was sending h.s.soph. yr. SAT’s or something.</p>
<p>The scores come to us electronically these days. We load them into our databases and wait for other credentials to arrive.</p>
<p>We don’t open files for every student who sends a score report for various reasons. Sometimes, they’re sending them a year or two before an application will be filed and sometimes a simple error in copying the school code sent the scores our way when they were meant for another school.</p>
<p>I see the common application has a place to self report scores - excellent idea as it would provide a good cross-check with the official transfer of scores.</p>
<p>Otherwise, one might always wonder whether that (for example) 740 math score ended up a 640 math score on the electronic transfer.</p>
<p>A very nice fail safe design on the common application in that regard</p>
<p>However the application appears to presume that a parent can only have one graduate degree. Obviously its a minor issue, however it seems for the sake of accuracy there should be more space on the electronic form</p>
<p>Oh, I don’t know - I don’t care if the schools have my information accurately; I only care that they have my kid’s information accurately. And since displaying myself as a person with multiple graduate degrees can only hurt my kid by discounting her achievements because she came from a family of “overachievers”, I’m not hurt at all that there’s no place for my other degrees.</p>
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<p>I remember when I applied for financial aid back in the stone age, my father filled out the forms. They asked for parents’ marital status. The choices were divorced, widowed, never married, father unemployed, father remarried, mother remarried, other. And that was it. My father checked “other” and in the explanation box, put “Parents married, father employed, children legitimate.”</p>