Score Choice is a useful but frequently misunderstood part of the SAT reporting process. Here is exactly how it works and when it matters.
What Score Choice Is
College Board's Score Choice policy allows you to choose which SAT test date scores to send to colleges. Without Score Choice, all of your SAT scores would automatically be sent to every school. With Score Choice, you can select, for example, to send only your March and October test date scores and not your June scores if June was your weakest performance.
How It Works in Practice
When you order score reports through College Board's website, you have the option to use Score Choice or to send all scores. Using Score Choice, you select which test dates to include. The recipient college receives only the scores from the dates you selected — they cannot see that other test dates exist or that you used Score Choice.
The Important Caveat: School-Specific Policies
Some selective schools — Stanford, Yale, and others — have historically required applicants to submit all test scores from every test date, regardless of Score Choice. These schools' policies effectively override Score Choice — if you apply to them, you are expected to submit all of your scores. Always check each school's individual score reporting policy on their admissions website. Using Score Choice to withhold scores from a school that requires all scores is a violation of their application policy.
When Score Choice Is Most Useful
Score Choice is most useful at non-superscoring schools where you had one significantly weaker test date. At superscoring schools, your strongest performance across all dates is already factored in — there is less strategic benefit to withholding dates since the school will construct your superscore from the dates you do send.