SAT and ACT Superscore and Score Choice Policies and College Applications
Common App 2022-23
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Greetings Students and Families
HERE’S SOME REALLY GREAT NEWS– !
SAT and ACT — College Applications – SUPER SCORING and SCORE CHOICE
Many colleges “superscore” which means that your application is evaluated on a composite score based on the best sub-scores across different test dates. This list can be found here:
Super Scoring and Score Choice options should relieve some of the stress over your SAT/ACT scores.
If you don’t see a university on the list, the second way to absolutely confirm is to explore the admissions tab and application requirements at a specific university by locating (use Google – much faster than the navigational challenges of most college websites) college admissions testing requirements.
Even if a college isn’t on the superscore list- your college admissions officer is human- and all the scores displaying in your application are taken into full consideration. No university has a “cutoff” that eliminates you from receiving an acceptance letter. College admissions is truly holistic–
LET’S TALK ABOUT SAT SCORE CHOICE -!
As part of your college application process, you’ll be submitting your test scores. It’s not as uncomplicated as it sounds-but the reality, different universities have unique policies on which test scores are required and how these are to be reviewed as part of your college application.
The Basics
Score Choice is a policy offered through the CollegeBoard that allows the student to determine which scores to share with colleges and which scores to exclude when reporting actual test scores as part of your college application. The ACT has a similar option for sending your scores. In fact ACT superscores for you. This is an awesome opportunity to highlight the best SAT/ACT scores aand omit any disappointing or “practice” tests you have taken (or for that matter- scores earned when you weren’t at your best- perhaps a day of – allergies?)
That said, while the College Board allows a student to select scores, not all universities adhere to a Score Choice policy. Moreover, and unknown to most families is that your high school transcript may already have included all your test scores. The College Board and ACT do report your scores to your high school. Your high school very likely has these scores reported on your official high school transcript.
Private high schools have a wide range of policies to honor and support students’ requests to remove disappointing test scores from their official high school transcript. Public high schools typically are responsive to family requests to exclude the exam scores from your transcript- but sometimes this takes a bit of little work to get through the well-intentioned red-tape.
WHY USE SCORE CHOICE in Your College Application Common App 2022-23?
As part of your test preparation, your tutor and you may have decided to experiment – test the waters. You may have sat for a baseline exam prior to beginning serious test preparation and the scores earned simply aren’t an accurate reflection of your abilities. Or maybe, you were sick the day of the exam and didn’t realize that you could skip the exam and the test fee (less a change date) could be applied to another testing date. Score choice is truly an invaluable option for test takers who experienced a huge improvement with more serious test preparation.
If the colleges you’re applying to participate in Score Choice- by all means be careful about choices of scores.
There’s a section of the Common App that asks whether you’ve taken any exams and have any scores to report. Here you will list test dates. So should you “omit” a date from the question if you don’t plan to report all your actual scores officially? This is a conversation to have with your college advisor. There is a final question on the Common App— one you must agree to before you press the submit button– this question is an ‘honesty’- attestation-indicating you’ve answered all questions truthfully. So please make sure that your responses align and don’t try to deceive anyone. You must answer the Common App question about test dates- but you don’t have to share those scores. That’s why Score Choice exists.
That said, not all of your colleges will participate and many require you to submit ALL YOUR TEST SCORES. .
Here’s a sample of colleges that DO NOT allow for score choice. These colleges require that you submit all your test scores in years where the Test Optional policies of our current pandemic are robust..
Carnegie Mellon University
Clarkson University
Coker College
College of Charleston
College of St. Benedict
Duquesne University
East Georgia State College
Elon University
Georgetown University
Gonzaga University
Johns Hopkins University
Loyola University, New Orleans
Ohio Wesleyan University
Seattle University
Shorter University
University of California, Berkeley
University of South Carolina
Yale University
It’s really important to stay up-to-date and check college admissions websites for the specific requirements on reporting tests scores, and the dates by which scores are to be received.
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