As challenging as the SAT is for students, figuring out how to use Score Choice is the SAT equivalent for parents. College Board has implemented an optional score-reporting feature which allows students to report only their best overall SAT scores to colleges. In a perfect world, Score Choice is a wonderful feature—Johnny, a junior in high school, can take his SATs 14 times and only report his highest overall score to all of the colleges where he chooses to apply. Unfortunately, Score Choice is only accepted by some colleges. What does this mean? Chances are that some of the schools that your student will be applying to will require him or her to send in ALL SAT scores, whether or not you pay for the Score Choice feature.

Here is a useful link where you can see how many colleges don’t accept the Score Choice feature. If the second column “SAT Score-Use Practice” says “All Scores” then Score Choice does not apply.

http://professionals.collegeboard.com/profdownload/sat-score-use-practices-list.pdf

In case you don’t have the time to sift through the long PDF, here are some popular schools that require students to send all of their scores:

Barnard College Columbia University

Carnegie Mellon University

Colgate University

Cooper Union

Cornell University

All of the Cuny Colleges

Delaware State University

George Washington University

Georgetown University

McGill University

Stanford University

Syracuse University

Temple University

Tufts University

University of North Carolina Charlotte

Almost all of the California universities (University of California Berkley, University of California Davis, University of California Los Angeles, etc.)

University of Maryland College Park

University of Pennsylvania

Wagner College

Yale University

As you can see from this abbreviated list, there are many universities, of varying academic caliber, that will require students to send in all of their SAT scores.

This means that you don’t send your student in to take an SAT or an SAT II unless they are thoroughly prepared. They can take unlimited practice tests, but they should only take the real thing when they are ready.