Applications & Essays
Lower Test Scores Can Still Strengthen Your College Application. Not Sending It May Even Hurt Your Chances. The Full Guide On When You Should Submit Your SAT or ACT Scores
By The Ivy Centre — College admissions mentorship
SEP 24, 202611 min read
Your took the SAT (or ACT) and your score was lower than you were aiming for. Not only that, but your SAT score was also below your dream college’s published median... So... don't send it? Not necessarily.
We know the advice you have probably heard:
Above the median? Submit.
Below the median? Hide it.
Very efficient. Very easy to remember. But also... Not how we would be making this decision.
A test score does not exist in isolation. Admissions officers see the school you attend, the courses available to you, your grades, your academic environment, and the broader context in which that score was earned. In some cases, a score that looks unimpressive next to a university's published range may actually provide very useful evidence of a student's academic strength once that context is considered.
But don't just trust what we say. There is now research showing just how consequential that distinction can be. And before we get there, we need to establish something VERY important for the 2026 / 2027 application cycle: Most colleges are still test-optional, but not all of them are, especially when looking at the Ivy League Plus colleges (Ivy+). So before deciding whether you SHOULD submit your score, you first need to know whether that decision is actually yours to make.
Do you even have a choice?
Before asking when to send your test scores with a college application, figure out whether YOU even have a choice
Testing policies have changed enough over the past few years that advice from an older sibling, a Reddit post from 2023, or even last year's applicant may already be outdated. FairTest's current tracker lists more than 1,800 colleges as test-optional, 78 as test-free, and 151 as requiring scores for the 2026–2027 cycle. (1) And yes, we still recommend checking every college's own admissions website afterward. Please do not let a giant spreadsheet on the internet have the final word on whether Harvard requires your SAT.
What's interesting is: among the 8 Ivy League universities, Harvard, Yale, Brown, Dartmouth, Cornell, and Penn require SAT or ACT scores for this application cycle. Princeton and Columbia remain test-optional but both have already announced that required testing will return in the following cycle. (2) Yale also changed its policy for this cycle, moving from its previous test-flexible system to requiring either the SAT or ACT.
So before you spend 45 minutes debating whether your 1480 is “good enough” to send somewhere, please check whether the college is going to require you to send it anyway.
And back to our College Applications Excel spreadsheet strategy (if you haven't read our previous articles explaining how to build your college application spreadsheet, start here): Now it's time to add the current testing policy for EVERY college on your list to your spreadsheet.
Why? Because the exact same SAT score can be:
Required at one college AND
Optional at another AND ALSO
Completely irrelevant at a test-free college that will not consider it
Same score, but three completely different decisions...
The median doesn't mean as much as you think...
Please stop treating the median like an admissions cutoff
Now let's assume your college IS test-optional. You open its Common Data Set on Section C. You find the SAT section. And there they are:
25th percentile
50th percentile
75th percentile
Your score is below the median. Panic? No.
First, let's make sure we understand what these numbers actually tell us. We recommend looking at the 25th and 75th percentile scores specifically, including Math and Reading or English when the college reports them.
If the 25th percentile SAT Math score is 750, this means that 25% of enrolled first-year students in that college whose SAT scores are represented in that distribution scored at or below 750 in Math. Similarly, if the 75th percentile is 790, it means that 75% scored at or below 790. The space between those points gives you the middle 50% of reported scores.
Useful information? Absolutely! But NOT a personal admissions cutoff?
If your score falls below the 25th percentile, it means your score is below where most enrolled score submitters in that reporting group fell. And we know how easy it is to see that and immediately think: “Okay... my score is too low. Sending it can only hurt me.”
But that conclusion turns a VERY contextual decision into a one-dimensional one... We know how a test score can feel unusually absolute. 1470 is 1470. It's natural: everyone puts their number next to the college’s median, see how their score compares, and if it looks low, then they immediately feel like they already have their answer.
But admissions officers are not reading your score without reading YOU.
And this is where the decision becomes much more interesting. The question we care about is not simply: “How does my score compare with this college's scores?” but also:
To understand what a test score really means... Ask yourself: “What does MY score communicate about ME, given the context in which I earned it?”
Imagine 2 applicants with the same 1400 SAT:
One attends a high school where very few students score anywhere near 1400, has taken the most rigorous coursework available, and has performed exceptionally well academically
The other attends a high school where scores around 1400 are common, has extensive access to test preparation, and has earned lower grades in less rigorous courses despite having more advanced coursework available
Same 1400. Same number on the screen. But VERY different information in an admissions file: the first score may reinforce a pattern of exceptional academic performance within the opportunities available to that student, while the second actually adds much less positive information to the application.
That's why reducing the decision to “my score is below their range, so I shouldn't send it” can miss something important. The number certainly tells admissions officers how you performed on the test, but your context helps them understand what that performance actually says about you.
And this is not just our opinion.
In fact, research has found that there is a cost to hiding scores
Dartmouth found something applicants REALLY need to understand: There is a cost to hiding some scores
A 2025 National Bureau of Economic Research study gives this decision real stakes. Bruce Sacerdote, Douglas Staiger, and Michele Tine examined 99,040 Dartmouth applications from 2017 and 2018, when testing was required, and 2021 and 2022, when applicants could withhold scores. They compared score submission patterns with admission outcomes and used available records to study scores that some applicants did not submit for consideration. (3)
Here is the surprising part. Applicants with similar scores tended to submit them at similar rates across more and less advantaged backgrounds. Yet withholding could hurt a high-achieving applicant from a less advantaged background more, because the score would have provided Dartmouth with valuable evidence of academic strength in the context of that specific student’s school or neighborhood. (3)
Dartmouth's research specifically notes the importance of evaluating scores using local norms at the student's high school.
Now here comes the part we REALLY want you to pay attention to:
Among one group of high-achieving, less-advantaged applicants studied by the researchers, the estimated admission rate was 2.9% when scores were withheld during the test-optional years assessed but 10.2% when comparable scores were reported in the years prior. That's significant! Approximately 3.6 times as high. (3)
Now, be careful with what those numbers actually tell us. The 2.9% and 10.2% estimates come from a specific population of Dartmouth applicants during specific application years. They are not an estimate of the causal effect of submitting a score for every applicant, and they certainly can't be applied to YOUR application as though submitting an SAT score mechanically multiplies your probability of admission by 3.6.
That isn't the important takeaway anyway. What you should take out of this study is that the informational value of a test score is not captured by the score alone.
The same score will carry different information when interpreted relative to the applicant's educational and socioeconomic context.
And THAT is why the simple rule: "Below the college's range = hide the score" fails. Because while you're comparing one number against one distribution, admissions officers would be interpreting that same number within a much richer set of contextual information, including how unusual that performance is within YOUR educational environment.
Should I send a below-median score?
So... should YOU submit a below-median score?
We wish we could give you a magical SAT number here. We can't.. And we would be suspicious of anyone who does without knowing anything else about you anyway.
Instead, if a college is test-optional, we would ask questions like:
How does your score compare with the college's published distribution?
How does it compare with testing performance at YOUR high school?
What courses were available to you?
How rigorous was your academic program?
How have you performed in those courses?
What access did you have to test preparation?
Were there work, family, financial, health, or other circumstances that materially affected your preparation?
Does the score reinforce academic strength already visible elsewhere?
Does it provide evidence of academic preparation that might otherwise be harder for an admissions officer to see?
And, finally, don't forget the section scores. A composite number can hide information that matters. For example, if you're applying for Engineering, we are probably going to care a lot more about what is happening in that Math section rather than admiring your composite score from a respectful distance. The point is not to find one number that makes the decision for you.
Is taking another SAT worth your time?
Required testing creates a completely different decision
Now let's change the scenario. You are applying somewhere that requires your SAT or ACT scores for admission. Naturally, you can no longer ask: “Should I submit this?” as it's no longer your decision to make.
So when you have to send your scores, the question becomes: “Given where my score currently stands, what is the smartest use of my time from here?”
MIT gives us a very useful example in this case. MIT required standardized testing for the students represented in its 2025 / 2026 Common Data Set. Per usual, MIT's published testing distributions show extremely strong performance among first-year enrolled students:
99.79% of students who submitted an SAT score had Math scores of at least 700
98.87% of students who submitted an ACT score had Math scores of at least 30
Sure, these are figures for enrolled score submitters and not an admissions cutoff. But still, when testing is required, MIT's numbers offer a strong directional signal about the expected academic preparation of students who will get accepted and, ultimately, enroll. (4)
If your required score falls far outside the range of students who typically enroll at MIT, ignoring what those SAT / ACT numbers are telling you isn't particularly useful either.
Now, you're facing different questions:
Can you realistically improve it before the deadline?
Which section has the greatest opportunity for improvement?
How much improvement would be realistic?
How many test dates still remain?
And most importantly: What would improving this score COST you? Because your time is also limited.
If another 80 hours of SAT preparation could produce a meaningful improvement, that may be worth considering. But if those same 80 hours come at the expense of your grades in difficult senior-year classes, meaningful extracurricular work that could tackle your application profile weaknesses for your dream schools, the quality of your essays, or even every remaining hour of sleep you planned to get before January...
We need to talk...
And by we, we mean your counselor. A counselor who knows your high school, academic record, course rigor, and broader college list can help you put that score into context and think through whether another test attempt is actually the best use of your time.
This is also where we want to be honest rather than dramatic. A lower score doesn't erase everything else you have accomplished, just as a higher score doesn't make admission predictable.
Testing strategy isn't simply about maximizing your score. Testing strategy is about deciding where your next hour is most likely to strengthen your overall application and college strategy.
Not every college is the same...
Make ONE testing decision per college
If you were thinking: “My SAT is 1480, so I'm submitting it everywhere” or “My SAT is below 1500, so I'm going test-optional everywhere I can.” Let us stop you right there.
Different colleges have different policies, score distributions, and expectations. The same score can communicate something different depending on the rest of YOUR academic context and on the university who's interpreting your application.
So once again, back to our College Applications Excel spreadsheet strategy (linking the article explaining it here again if you haven't yet learned how to build your college application spreadsheet. Please start here):
P.S.: At this point you should probably accept that we're not letting you get rid of it...
For every college in your college list, record:
Current testing policy
Your latest SAT or ACT scores
Your superscore, if the college accepts one
25th and 75th percentile composite scores
25th and 75th percentile section scores
The year represented by those published numbers
After filling these columns out, add one more column per college with the question: Why am I submitting or withholding this score? Write one sentence. Not: “Below median.” Again, we all know how to compare 2 numbers; a solid and educated college admissions strategy requires you to elaborate on the actual reason for making such an important decision. For example:
“Although my SAT is below this college's median, it is unusually strong relative to my school's testing profile and reinforces the academic performance already visible in my transcript.”
Or:
“My score is optional here, falls substantially below the college's reported range, and does not add meaningful evidence of academic strength beyond what the rest of my application already demonstrates.”
The exact answer will depend on YOU. For colleges requiring testing, add one last column including your remaining test dates and deadlines to register. We would then compare a realistic retake plan with all the other work your application still needs. A counselor who knows your school can help you decide whether your scores tell a stronger story than the percentile alone suggests.
So... is your SAT score “good enough”?
We don't like that question... As you can see, figuring out when to send your test scores with your college applications is a much more complex question than most make it out to be.
After a score appears on your screen, it can suddenly feel as though these simple couple digits have issued a final judgment on years of academic work. Please remind yourself that they haven't!
A 1450 does NOT know what high school you attended or which courses were available to you. It doesn't know whether you worked after school, cared for a family member, prepared with a private tutor or entirely alone, or took the test under circumstances nobody would voluntarily choose to.
But admissions officers can know some of those things.
Ask yourself: “Given this college's testing policy, its published score distribution, my academic context, and everything else in my application... does submitting it help them understand me better?”
Sometimes the answer will be yes... Sometimes it will be no. And sometimes the college will require it anyway, at which point we have an entirely different problem to solve. And THAT is real testing strategy.
Sources
Official testing policies: Harvard, Yale, Brown, Dartmouth, Cornell, Penn, Princeton, and Columbia
Sacerdote, Staiger, and Tine, National Bureau of Economic Research working paper, 2025 and Dartmouth applicant counts