Retrieving Your Archived SAT Scores: A Comprehensive Guide
Did you graduate from college a while ago and now a prospective employer wants to see your SAT scores? Did you take time off after high school and now have to send your SAT scores to colleges? This article explains how to get and use old SAT scores. If you're trying to dig up some old SAT scores and drawing blanks, this guide provides tips and a process to follow for retrieving them.
Initial Steps: Accessing Your College Board Account
For students aged 13 or older, you can use your College Board student account and go to studentscores.collegeboard.org to access your scores online and your score report PDF. Once you’re signed in, your most recent score should be shown at the top of the page. If you took the SAT within the past few years, you should still be able to access your scores online through your College Board account. The scores should be listed under the "My Scores" section.
This resource gives testers taking the SAT on the weekend information on creating a personal College Board student account they can use to register for the test and access personalized content for multiple platforms and services. You, your parent, or your counselor could have created an account for you. If you have another account, sign out now.
Dealing with Archived Scores
However, if your SATs were taken more than a few years ago, you might need to order archived scores. College Board keeps SAT scores on file for several decades, so even if your scores aren't immediately available online, they should have them in their records.
Once you've left high school and haven't tested for a year, College Board archives your SAT test scores and certain information you may have provided about yourself during testing. Scores older than 2005 are no longer accessible. Other old scores may have been stored in data sources that are now decommissioned and no longer accessible.
Read also: Accessing Your ACT Results
The Retrieval Process: A Step-by-Step Guide
Here's how to retrieve your archived SAT scores:
- Log into your College Board account: This is the method most people will use.
- Navigate to the "Send SAT Scores" page: This can typically be found within your account dashboard.
- Acknowledge the message about older score reports: You'll see a message about ordering older score reports, which you'll need to accept.
- Select the recipients: Follow through the prompts to select the institutions to send your scores and information to, indicating which scores to send for each recipient.
- Indicate which scores to send: You'll indicate which scores to send to each school.
Remember to have your test date (or approximate test date as best you can remember), the high school from which you graduated, and other relevant personal information on hand, as you will need this for the form. admissions questions. Use the Find Your Scores tool to check your account information and update your address or school if needed. You can also find your score using your test details and SAT registration number.
Fees Associated with Archived Scores
Take note that it's more pricey compared to just accessing online recent scores. When an SAT score is archived, it's not as accessible, and there is an additional $35 fee to get an archived score from the College Board. Regular SAT score reports cost $14 per report. However, because you're sending old SAT scores, there is an additional $35 archived fee.
It also takes a little longer for them to process the request, usually around 5-7 weeks.
Expediting the Process: Rush Reporting
If you need to send old SAT scores quickly, rush reporting is usually available. This option costs an extra $31 (in addition to the $14 and $35 archived fee per score report). Rush reporting is typically available for older SAT scores. There is an additional rush fee plus the score reporting fee for each report and the retrieval fee for processing the archived scores. With rush reporting, SAT scores are typically sent to colleges within two to four business days.
Read also: Comprehensive PSAT Guide
Note: Check with your college before you order rush reports.
Usage of SAT Scores by Employers
Some employers request SAT scores. Companies such as Amazon, Cvent, Baines & Co., McKinsey & Co., and Goldman Sachs have been known to request SAT scores from prospective employees. Most employers who ask for SAT scores don't require official score reports. However, be prepared to provide one, if asked.
Understanding Score Validity and Equivalence
Official score reports sent to colleges five or more years after a test date may be less valid predictors of college academic performance than more recent scores. This is because in extended periods of intervening time, student knowledge, skills, and abilities can grow and change.
The date when you took the test shouldn't matter much to employers for making comparisons. A 2000/2400 from 2015 should be equivalent to a 2000/2400 from 2007. Both SAT scores should indicate the same skill level and percentile score. In general, an SAT score will mean the same thing no matter when you take the SAT. In other words, a 1250 on an SAT from 2016 should equal a 1250 on an SAT from 2018, 2019, 2020, and so on.
Accounting for Changes in Scoring Scales
The only major problem when comparing scores from different years is the scoring scales used. The SAT changed dramatically in 2016, when it shifted from a 600-2400 scale to a 400-1600 scale. As a result, the scores for these years will look quite different.
Read also: Deep Dive: College Football 25's Gauntlet
Based on data for both the new and old scoring systems, we can see that the score you needed to achieve a certain percentile doesn't actually change much from year to year.
