5 October 2009 archive

This year the College Board returned to its policy of years ago called Score Choice. When it was announced last year, my first thought was this only benefits the College Board, not the applicant. It has turned out to be, if not the worst decision, a most confusing one. Score Choice (which allows applicants to select which test results are reported … and which ones are not) was designed to help reduce student stress. But it has produced major headaches instead, especially because some colleges insist on seeing all scores, regardless of the Score Choice option.

This article from the Christian Science Monitor tries to explain how seniors should complete their Common Applications when they are applying to colleges that are honoring Score Choice and those that are not. However, it does not point out that once the Common Application is completed it is NOT necessary to send it to all colleges at the same time.

That is, the SAT scores (if below average for that school) can be edited out before sending to the SAT optional colleges. On the other hand, colleges like Yale that expect to see all SAT scores can be entered before submitting. By the way, if your high school puts ALL standardized test scores onto the official high school transcript, they may leave them off if you request it.

Although there are still many questions and concerns, that the new Score Choice policy evokes, this article should allay some worries about how to tackle the test-score section of the Common App this year.

For Those Withholding SAT Scores, Advice on Completing the Common Application

 

As high school seniors and their counselors get deeper into fall, they will surely find themselves wrestling with the fine print and ramifications of the College Board’s new Score Choice policy.

For the uninitiated, Score Choice is a new feature being offered by the College Board that allows applicants to withhold some SAT scores (presumably their lowest, though it’s not necessarily that simple) from the colleges to which they are applying. One potential complication: several dozen colleges, including Cornell, Rice, Tufts and Yale, require students to submit all SAT scores from every occasion in which they have taken the test.

Already, those seniors who have sought to get a jump on filling out the Common Application have been inundating the Common Application support center with questions related to Score Choice, and with reports that they are “flummoxed.” That’s the description Rob Killion, the executive director of the Common Application, used in an   e-mail message to me late Tuesday night. Read more »