According to collegeboard.org, the College Board’s “membership of educators” created the SAT in 1926 to “democratize access to college for all students.” Each academic year, nearly three million students around the world take the SAT, according to the site. And since 2009, the SAT has allowed students to use “Score Choice” to report scores from individual testing dates to colleges rather than their whole histories.
The College Board even gives you four free score reports. Four. It’s a savings of $44, as each report outside of the registration period costs $11.
The catch, though, is you pick the schools to which you’d like to send your scores before you see your actual scores. In other words, you throw away a savings of $44 or you send your scores blindly. The worst part, however, is the College Board sends your score after they come out, meaning, for a small period of time, you can see that your scores will be sent but lack the ability to even cancel those reports.
The SAT, for a mere $50, can demonstrate to universities your academic ability. For another $15, you can register for your next test over the phone. For an additional $26, you can change when you test or where you test or even which specific subject tests you take. If you miss the regular deadline, you can register late by coughing up another $27. And for nearly twice the price of the original test, you can just show up at the test center, and space-allowing, pay a whopping $94 to test. All fees are nonrefundable.
But these fees are arguably fair — they reward the well-prepared and reprimand the procrastinators, the uninformed and the inexperienced. The cost of four blindly sent score reports, however, is completely unfair — it punishes those hoping to capitalize on the College Boards seemingly gracious gift.
The College Board says it is “a mission-driven, not-for-profit” organization that aims to connect “students to college success and opportunity.” If the organization truly works in the best interest of the student, it should allow us to send four free score reports with less strings attached — we should be able to send them after we see our scores or at least cancel the reports before the College Board sends them.
Until the College Board allows students to send their free score reports after seeing their scores, or at least until it allows students to cancel these reports, $44 is a small price to make sure you’re happy with the scores you’re sending to colleges.
By Nomin-Erdene Jagdagdorj
This opinion piece is labeled as such on the desktop version.