Can I just self-report my college test scores?

Congrats! You have an amazing SAT or ACT score that you definitely want to send to colleges. How do you actually do that?

While Common App indeed has a section called “Testing” that allows you to self-report your scores, simply listing your SAT or ACT score there is not enough. A dishonest person (not that any of you are in this category!) could theoretically put anything there. Even an honest person (who is a terrible typist) could make a mistake and self-report a 1420 instead of a 1320!

For this reason, the majority of colleges want to see a primary document. That is, they want to see an official score report sent to them DIRECTLY from the testing company. If you’ve ever written a DBQ in your history class, you know how important those primary documents are when you’re trying to prove a point. In this scenario, the point you’re trying to prove is that you should be admitted into this college!

So how do you go about sending official score reports?

When you log into College Board or the ACT website, go to the section where you see your actual score. At that point, you’ll see a link to send scores. If you’ve ever shopped online, you can send scores. You’ll simply click on the list of colleges that you wish to receive your scores and add them to your cart.

On College Board, you’ll be asked if you want to “choose scores” or “send all scores”. Depending on each college’s policy, the score report will automatically default to “Score Choice” (which means that just your superscore will be sent), or “Send All Scores” (which, obviously, means that all of your scores will be sent). I’ve found that even when a school requires that all scores are sent, they often end up “superscoring” the tests themselves. The key takeaway here is to follow the instructions for each school which will be clearly stated on College Board.

ACT automatically sends your superscore, assuming you have taken the test more than once. This is how they state it on their website: “ACT provides an automatically calculated ACT Superscore to all students who have taken the ACT more than once from September 2016 to current day.” It’s important to note that ACT will provide a superscore using both the new version of the test and older version of the test (if you took it before February 2025).

ACT charges $16.50 per college for a score send, while College Board charges $12.

Note: when you are signing up to take the SAT or ACT, please DO NOT opt in to having your score sent for free to schools. Wait until you see your score before you decide to send it anywhere!

Not sure if you should send scores or not? Click below to find out!