While you are studying diligently for all of your SAT Subject tests, you probably aren't thinking too hard about how and when you are going to send out all those scores to your dream schools. I get it—taking the test is the hard part, and you want to focus your energy on that.
To help you out, I'll lay out everything you need to consider in terms of score-sending logistics and strategy: how to send SAT Subject test scores (with or without Score Choice), sending the four free reports you get with registration, special ordering circumstances, and how to cancel scores. It's all in here!
Update: SAT Subject Tests No Longer Required or Offered
In January 2021, the College Board announced that, effective immediately, no further SAT Subject Tests will be offered in the United States (and that SAT Subject Tests will only be offered internationally only through June 2021). It is now no longer possible to take SAT Subject Tests.
In the past several years, many schools have dropped their Subject Test requirements, and by the time the College Board made their announcement, nearly no schools required them. With this news, no colleges will require Subject Tests, even from students who could have hypothetically taken the exams a few years ago. Some schools may consider your Subject Test scores if you submit them, similar to how they consider AP scores, but you should contact the specific schools you're interested in to learn their exact policies.
Many students were understandably confused about why this announcement happened midyear and what this means for college applications going forward. Read more about the details of what the end of SAT Subject Tests means for you and your college apps here.
How to Send SAT Subject Test Scores, Step by Step
I've created a step-by-step guide to sending SAT Subject test scores. I'll walk you through the complete process here, assuming you've already taken the tests. Then below I'll explain how the process differs if you're trying to send your four free reports.
Step 1: Log in to Your College Board Account
Once you're logged into your account, scroll down to where your scores are displayed. To send scores, click the "Send Available Scores Now" button.
Step 2: Confirm That You Want to Send Scores
You will be greeted by this pop-up:
Confirm that you want to send the additional reports, and you will be taken to the school choice page.
Step 3: Select Your Recipients
You can search by school name, city, or code. To add a school, click on it in the "All Available Recipients" search results list, then click "Add." Then click "Continue" to finalize your selection.
Step 4: Confirm Your Schools
This will take you to the "Build Your Score Recipients" screen. From here, you can request additional free reports with a fee waiver, add more schools to your list of recipients, or use Score Choice to select the scores you want to send (or not send) in your score reports.
To add more schools, click "Add Score Recipients" from the "Build your Score Recipients" screen.
Step 5: Use a Fee Waiver
If you have a fee waiver, click "I have a Fee Waiver" (in parentheses next to the number of free reports remaining, which might be 0). When you enter your waiver code, this will give you four additional free reports that you can send at any time.
Step 6: Score Choice
To use Score Choice, click the "Choose Scores" button in the row with the desired recipient from the"Build your Score Recipients" screen. This will take you to the Score Choice page. You will have to agree to a disclaimer that Score Choice is allowed at the given school.
Then, you will be able to uncheck any scores you do not want to include with your free score report. You have to include complete SAT I scores—you can't pick and choose between sections. But you can select subject tests individually.
As you can see, I'm an ancient crone who took SAT subject tests in 2008, and who did not study particularly hard for the French exam (sorry, Monsieur K!!)
When your desired options are selected, hit "continue." This will take you back to the "Build Your Score Recipients" page, where you can change score selections for other schools if you wish.
Step 7: Review Your Order
When everything on the "Build Your Score Recipients" page looks good, hit "continue" to proceed with the score-sending process. This will take you to the "Review Order," page.
Beyond the four free reports that you get when you register for the exam, score reports costs $11.25 per recipient. So four schools = four reports = $11.25 x 4 = $45.
Check the box to agree to the terms and conditions, and place your order! Then you will be able to return to the Main "My SAT" page.
That's how you do it! Next, we'll touch on what's different when you send the four free reports you get with your registration.
Free SAT Subject Test Score Reports
The College Board kindly allows you to send four free score reports to schools with every test date, including SAT subject tests. There's a catch, though—you have to send the scores sight unseen. This means you won't see your scores for those subject tests before schools do. The College Board says that they do this to expedite the score-sending process.
If you still have any of your four free score reports available to you, you will see this handy message on the main screen when you log in:
To proceed from here, click "Send Scores When Available." If you have past SAT test dates (Regular SAT or Subject Tests) you will see this handy pop-up:
That's right! You can send past scores with your free score reports. Even better, you can use Score Choice! So you can pick and choose which old scores to send to schools with your new ones. This is great if you already took the SAT and met your target score.
It's important to note that when you use your four free reports, you have to send all the scores from that date. This means that if you take multiple subject tests on the same day—and you probably will—you have to send all of those scores to your four free colleges. So you can't send Literature to UCLA and Math 2 to University of Michigan; you have to send both to both.
It is generally worthwhile to use your free reports if you can, because sending additional reports costs money. It might stress you out a little that you have to commit to sending your scores from that test date before you see them, but you can change or cancel what schools receive for your free reports up to nine days after you take the test. So if you feel confident that your scores will meet your targets, this is a reasonably safe bet. If you come out of the test feeling like it may not have gone well, you can always cancel sending those scores to your reach school.
It's worth noting that for any school that does not allow Score Choice, you might as well send them your free report, because you will have to send all scores when you apply anyway. These schools understand that everyone has less than stellar test dates, so don't ruminate on it too much if you think you didn't do your best on one of your subject tests from a given date.
What about timing? If you're taking subject tests as a junior, it's not too early to send your scores if you would like to. Colleges will take it as a sign of interest to receive scores from you, and you can certainly re-take the subject tests if you need to. If you don't re-take the tests, you might save a little money on the expensive application process if some of your schools already have your scores.
Reach for the stars!
Special Circumstances: Archived Scores and Rush Reporting
There are couple circumstances in which you might have to pay some extra money to the College Board, our benevolent standardized testing dictators, to send SAT Subject test scores.
You will have to pay extra if your scores have been "archived." Scores are archived if you have graduated high school and your scores are a year or more older. In this case the College Board will charge you a fee of $31 to retrieve them, and then $11.25 for each additional recipient. So if you want to send old scores to two schools, that's $31 + $11.25 = $42.25.
If your scores are five years old or older, they will also send a note to the recipient saying that the scores may not be the best representation of your abilities. So sadly if I wanted to send my 2008 subject test scores I would have to pay an extra fee and have a special note sent with my scores.
You will also have to pay extra if you want to rush-report your scores to recipients. You might do this if you are about to miss a deadline and you need to get scores out ASAP. Rush-reporting is supposed to get the scores to recipients within two business days of your request, which may or may not be faster than just sending them normally.
The primary issue here is that some colleges only download newly received scores once every few days or once a week, so rushing the score may not actually lead to the college seeing your score any sooner. However, if you are down to the wire and at the height of desperation, you might want to rush them. Note that you can only do this for scores that have already been released, so, your unscored tests won't get to recipients any faster if you rush.
It costs $31 to rush one report, and then $11.25 for each additional report (so if you rush three reports to three different schools, it will cost $31 + $11.25 + $11.25 to send all three reports).
Finally, there are times when rush reporting is not available. (Right now, in fact!) So don't order rush reports if the College Board says they aren't available on their website, because they will just take your money and not deliver the scores in two days. Truly outstanding and helpful customer service, that.
Next we'll talk about how to cancel your scores if you feel truly alarmed by your test performance.
Canceling SAT Subject Test Scores
Let's say you panic in the middle of the exam and don't finish the test on time, or another mishap occurs—it happens to most of us at some point or another. You know you didn't do well on the test and you don't even want to see your own scores, let alone let schools see them!
You have two options:
#1: Cancel Your Scores
You can cancel your scores anytime up to 11:59 PM ET the Wednesday after you took your test(s). Note that unless you are canceling due to sudden illness or an equipment failure, this will cancel all of the tests you took that day—every subject! Importantly, it cannot be undone. When your scores are cancelled, they are gone forever! No school (or you) will ever see them, no matter if you had selected schools for your free score reports or not.
#2: Cancel Your Score Reports
You have up to nine days after you take the test(s) to cancel any free score reports you have on-order. You may want to do this if you think only one test went poorly. This way, you can still use the other subjects in Score Choice score reports later.
Unfortunately, a tiny octopus does not wave farewell to your scores when they canceled.
How To Cancel Your Scores
If you decide to cancel at the test center, ask a test proctor for a "Request to Cancel" form. Fill it out and return to the proctor before you leave the testing center.
If you decide to cancel after leaving the test center, download and fill out the form to request SAT score cancellation. You need to sign it, so you will need to get it to the College Board via fax or overnight mail. You can get more details on this process on the College Board page on score cancellation.
You can cancel your scores for individual tests due to equipment failure (your CD player stops working, or your calculator dies) or for a sudden illness during the exam. In this case, only the score for that test is canceled; you can still get your scores for the other tests you took that day.
To do this, you will need to report the equipment failure or illness during the exam. Then you will need to fill out a Request to Cancel form at the testing center, check the "Single Test: equipment failure" option (yes, even if you're sick) and give it to a testing supervisor. They will sign it to validate that your equipment (or your body) failed you and your score for just that test will be canceled.
But hopefully none of that will happen, everything will go smoothly, and you will send out all your score reports with confidence!
Summary: SAT Subject Test Scores
You will get four free score reports for every SAT subject test date you sign up for. You won't see the scores before they get sent to school. Otherwise, additional score reports cost $11.25 per report.
You can use Score Choice on SAT subject tests, just like with the regular SAT. You can also rush-report or cancel scores if you need to, but both of those options should be carefully considered!
What Now?
You might also be wondering what a good SAT score is, anyways. Let us fill you in with this guide to what makes a good SAT Subject Test score.
Aiming for top schools? Check out our article on SAT Subject Test Scores for the Ivy League.
Or maybe you just want to know what the average score for each SAT Subject Test is.
If you're taking the regular SAT anytime soon, you should definitely check out our complete guide to the new SAT. This will bring you up to speed on all the ins and outs of the new format, which was rolled out in March!
