Test score reports is a phrase you will come across while in the United States undergraduate admissions process. What are test score reports and how do they work?
Standardized Tests
Standardized tests are tests used to fairly evaluate admission candidates. Examples are the SAT® (Scholastic Aptitude Test) and the TOEFL® (Test of English as a Foreign Language). These tests are administered by independent bodies, in this case College Board® and ETS® respectively.
Since these tests are administered by companies not affiliated with your prospective universities, those universities have to get your scores somehow right? This is where score reports come in.
Score Reports
Each standardized testing agency has to send your scores to each one of your prospective universities*. The score packets sent to those universities are called score reports. The universities are called score recipients.
Each testing company has its own score reporting system and policies. Let’s look into these.
SAT® Score Reporting Policies
For the SAT®, you are allowed to add four free score recipients. All free score recipients must be added on or before 11:59 pm EST (Eastern Standard Time), nine days after your test. Each additional score recipient can be added for $12. College Board® uses codes to identify each university and you will be asked to enter the code corresponding to each score recipient. Recipient codes can be found here https://collegereadiness.collegeboard.org/pdf/sat-score-reporting-code-list.pdf. Please note that this list might not be up to date so it is advisable to search Google for the updated version.
TOEFL® Score Reporting Policies
The TOEFL® is similar to the SAT® in that you are also allowed to add four free score recipients. All free score recipients must be added on or before 10 pm local time (i.e your time) the day before your test. Each additional score recipient can be added for $20. ETS® also uses codes to identify each score recipient. Recipient codes can be found here https://www.ets.org/s/praxis/pdf/attending_inst_recipient_codes.pdf. Please note that this list also might not be up to date.
* Generally, you can self-report you test scores during the application process. This way you do not have to pay for test reports for each additional university you add. Note that you still have to send an official test report to your choice university when you are accepted to confirm your self-reported scores.
What this does is that you only pay to send test scores to the one school you choose to attend. That is if you did not previously add that university to the free score report list.
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