Among the many expenses that add up in the college admission process are application fees, test registration fees, and official score report fees. Many students are eligible to have these fees waived, but other students who don’t qualify for waivers may still find the costs to be a burden. A typical scenario might involve a student taking both the SAT and ACT once or twice, applying to 8–10 colleges, and spending a few hundred dollars simply to have official score reports sent to each college.
Over the past few years, efforts have been made to encourage more colleges to accept self-reported SAT and ACT scores from students during the application process and only require official reports when a student actually enrolls.
Compass tracks the testing policies at over 400 popular colleges and universities. Below, we have listed whether or not these schools allow students to self-report their test scores during the application process. Note some schools may still require official scores for international or home-schooled students.
Additionally, we have listed schools outside our 400+ which we’ve learned allow self-report. Our goal is to see that list grow. Please add a comment and provide the policy page link if you come across a new school. Only colleges that have written policies on their websites or in application materials are included here.
Please note: All colleges require official test scores upon enrollment; these are application policies only. Some schools may have different requirements to be eligible for merit-based scholarships. Students should check directly with each college to confirm they have the most recent and accurate policy information.
Michigan’s website states that they will allow self-reporting for 23-24 — the list says (2022-2023)
https://admissions.umich.edu/apply/first-year-applicants/requirements-deadlines
***We will allow for self reported test scores for the 2023-24 season; the scores do not need to come from the testing agency. If you have not yet had your scores reported, you can have them sent to us using these links:”
Thanks for the update!
Oregon State University also says they will accept self-reported scores, in fact, they prefer it!
https://www.compassprep.com/self-reporting-test-scores/
Thank you for letting us know about Oregon State! We’ve added them.
According to the University of Wisconsin-Madison, they are changing their policy for the class of 2025 to require official test scores.
That’s correct! We’ve removed them from the list.
St. Mary’s College of Maryland allows self-reporting as well:
https://www.smcm.edu/admissions/test-optional-policy/#:~:text=You%20may%20have%20your%20SAT,at%20admissions%40smcm.edu.
Hi Nathalie,
Thanks for letting us know! We’ve added SMCM to the list.
When was the last time this list was updated? Thanks!
Hi Erin,
This is not an exhaustive list. But we continually add schools as we hear of their policies. In fact, we just learned of University of Vermont, so the table has been updated to include UVM today.
Penn State now allows students to self report ACT/SAT scores in their MyPennState Account portal after they’ve applied https://www.psu.edu/resources/faq/test-optional
Thank you for letting us know, Andrea!