Scores and Privacy

Students are encouraged to send their scores to colleges, universities, or scholarship organizations.

  • When they request that we send their scores as directed by them during SAT School Day testing, we send their scores along with demographic information sufficient for identity matching to those institutions and organizations, who may then use it to support their applications to those organizations.
  • When they request that we send their scores to institutions or other organizations as directed by them through your College Board account, we send their scores, certain demographic information, and other information they provide to College Board to those institutions and organizations. These organizations may use this data to send students information about admissions, educational, financial aid, and scholarship opportunities.

We also send student scores, data derived from their scores, other information they provide in connection with testing, and certain demographic information to the student's school and district. In addition, students' scores may be sent to their state for educational, diagnostic, and/or reporting purposes.

We automatically send students' scores and information to certain scholarship programs, unless they choose to opt out. This includes their state scholarship organization, if any, and the U.S. Presidential Scholars Program if they took the SAT test in the U.S., U.S. territories, or Puerto Rico, or are a U.S. citizen taking the test abroad.

For more information, see College Board's Privacy Center at privacy.collegeboard.org.

Transcript Best Practices

The SAT Program recommends that schools don't place SAT scores on school transcripts.

Keeping SAT scores off transcripts helps:

  • Schools comply with the Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act (FERPA).
  • Avoid any possible conflicts in which a school sends SAT scores that a student didn’t intend to report to a specific institution.

If your school still decides to include scores on a transcript, we recommend that you receive prior written consent from the student or their parent/legal guardian before doing so.