Alongside Super Scoring, Score Choice is a key aspect of Digital SAT and ACT testing. It can be a big advantage…if you know how to wield it.
And of course, I want you to be one of the people in that happy category, reaping the benefits of Score Choice!
Whether you’re currently applying to college…or a future applicant…or the parent of someone in one of those categories…this article is for you!
Today I’m going to draw on my 16+ years of test prep expertise 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 an optional system for colleges: a given school can either decide to offer Score Choice, or not to offer it.
If a college permits Score Choice, that means test-takers can send only the scores from SAT or ACT test dates that they want that school to see. So, you would not have to show that admissions committee the performances that aren’t up to your standards!
Why is this a solution to a common problem? Well, 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 highest Math score. In June, you finally hit the Reading and Writing numbers you were hoping for. 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 sick, or distracted by a fight with your brother….whatever the cause, you whiffed it big time. Happens to the best of us!
Enter Score Choice. For the colleges on your list that practice 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 utmost generosity, a case of the testing authorities giving a massive gift to anxious test-takers. After all, if you never have to send that score from the test sitting where you didn’t do so hot, that makes you look a LOT better to admissions committees….which lowers the stakes of any given test sitting!
But….doesn’t it strike you as a bit fishy that the College Board and ACTStudent.org would be so kind out of the blue?
Right you are. Like most changes that the Digital SAT and ACT creators willingly make, Score Choice actually benefits THEM, too.
Back in the day, before the advent of Score Choice, you would ask the College Board to “send your scores” to X University. You’d pay one fee, and then the scores for ALL of the tests that you ever took with the College Board (the SAT, the now-defunct SAT IIs, etc.) would all be sent over to that college. Yes, this was a bit of a drag if you’d experienced a significantly sub-par test sitting, but at least the process was straightforward—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 kind of flopped—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, the long and short of it is: Score Choice allows the SAT and ACT to collect 2x or even 3x the score submission fees! They did themselves a nice little favor, there.
Which Schools Allow Score Choice?
Though more and more colleges are participating in Score Choice as time goes on, you still need to do your own research to determine 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 put your best foot forward, 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 protest: “But Kristina, will they really 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 collecting the score...how would they actually find out?”
To be honest, it simply makes me really anxious to think about a student rolling the dice with such a weighty matter as your college destination. Do I know for a fact that it will go wrong? No. But it might. And then the admissions committee might get ticked off and immediately trash your entire application. There’s a “might” that makes it not worth trying.
And hey, my knowledge and intuitions about that topic have been getting exceptional testing and admissions results for my clients for over 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! When I’m working with a student and this question comes up, I categorically do NOT let them gamble with their future that way.
So that's everything you need to know about Score Choice!
As this post enters your mental library of admissions wisdom, 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 confusing, you’re welcome to enlist me, the test prep guru, in your quest. I’ll draw up a personalized test prep timeline and map FOR you…so you can snag the pot of gold that is admission to your top-pick school.
