SAT and ACT Registration

Copyright by Deb Erbach Burger.
Used with permission.

SAT and ACT registration is a fairly simple process.

Students in schools get the forms they need from their Guidance Counselors, and they both register and pay through their school’s Guidance Office.

However, the College Board’s website is available to any parent or student, and completing your SAT or ACT registration online offers some options that a particular high school may not offer.

Students who complete their ACT or SAT registration online can choose from a wide variety of testing dates and locations in their geographical area.

Payment by credit/debit card is accepted online, and the admission ticket is printed on one’s computer at home. This ticket allows the student to take the test on the date and at the place for which he/she registered, regardless of that school’s attitude toward home schoolers. If a testing center refused a ticketed student admission, they would lose their certification to administer the test to their own students!

The price of the test is the same for all students, regardless of where they register, and a testing center is not allowed to charge an additional fee.

Registration for the PSAT can be done by contacting a local high school’s Guidance Department, or online. The price of the PSAT is less than half the cost of either of the other two tests.

Can you overload on college admission testing? Is more better?

It is possible to do too much testing.

While only the highest ACT test score, and the highest combination of SAT scores is considered the “final” score for a student, the colleges do have varying access to the previous scores.

There is some amount of negative reaction among college admission officials to a student perceived as trying to “play the odds” by taking the test many times.

As I have interviewed admissions officials at a dozen or so universities, they have consistently expressed the desire to see 2 or 3 scores: less means the student may not be serious about getting doing the best he/she can; more may mean the student has some problem or is a “player.” That’s not necessarily official policy, and it’s not necessarily fair, but it is the perception in the minds of the officials I’ve interviewed at a wide variety of institutions over the past 10 years.

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