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Score Choice + "Send All Scores"--Which Scores Are Sent?

Written by Sally Rubenstone | April 21, 2010

Question: The College Board states: "Score Choice gives you the option to choose which scores (by test date for the SAT and by individual test for SAT Subject Tests) you send to colleges — in accordance with an institution's stated score-use practice"

Does this mean that, if a college is listed as

"Send all scores," if I choose "Score Choice," will all my scores be sent to the college anyway?

"The Dean" does not blame you for being confused about this!

If a college wants you to submit all SAT scores then YOU must tell the College Board to send the scores. This is all done on the honor system. The scores will NOT be sent unless you order them.

You are not supposed to use the Score Choice option for colleges that insist on seeing all your results, although the colleges will have no way of knowing if you complied with the request or not (unless your high school routinely puts test scores on transcripts. In this case, the colleges will see whatever the high school guidance office includes.)

I'm sure that some students cheat and use Score Choice when they're not supposed to. But, like in many other instances in life, this is really a question of personal integrity and responsibility.

Ideally, all colleges will eventually decide to honor Score Choice, which will help make this already too-confusing process a bit less so, but so far we aren't there yet.

Sally Rubenstone

Sally Rubenstone knows the competitive and often convoluted college admission process inside out: From the first time the topic of college comes up at the dinner table until the last duffel bag is unloaded on a dorm room floor. She is the co-author of Panicked Parents' Guide to College Admissions; The Transfer Student's Guide to Changing Colleges and The International Student's Guide to Going to College in America. Sally has appeared on NBC's Today program and has been quoted in countless publications, including The New York Times, The Washington Post, USA Weekend, USA Today, U.S. News & World Report, Newsweek, People and Seventeen. Sally has viewed the admissions world from many angles: As a Smith College admission counselor for 15 years, an independent college counselor serving students from a wide range of backgrounds and the author of College Confidential's "Ask the Dean" column. She also taught language arts, social studies, study skills and test preparation in 10 schools, including American international schools in London, Paris, Geneva, Athens and Tel Aviv. As senior advisor to College Confidential since 2002, Sally has helped hundreds of students and parents navigate the college admissions maze. In 2008, she co-founded College Karma, a private college consulting firm, with her College Confidential colleague Dave Berry, and she continues to serve as a College Confidential advisor. Sally and her husband, Chris Petrides, became first-time parents in 1997 at the ripe-old age of 45. So Sally was nearly an official senior citizen when her son Jack began the college selection process, and when she was finally able to practice what she had preached for more than three decades.