You got your scores and they are on their way to your chosen schools! Now comes the tricky part — deciding whether or not to retake the test. Having an established target or goal score is helpful at this point. If you hit or surpassed your goal, great! Send out those scores and relax. If you’ve fallen short and believe you have the potential to do better next time, commit to some more studying and gear up for your next attempt. You can do it!
You studied for the SAT. You were well rested and prepared on test day. You made it through! Now… when do you get your scores? It can be frustrating to have to wait for the results of something you’ve already waited so long for, so it helps to know exactly what to expect. Here’s a timeline of what happens once you’ve taken your SAT.
Your SAT score is viewable online on your College Board account 13 days after your test date; a Saturday-administered test score should be up the second Friday after that. The essay score usually comes out two days later. June test scores take a little longer to be released — usually about five weeks after your test date. Scores are typically posted at 5AM Eastern Time (2AM Pacific), but this can vary, so don’t worry if it’s a bit later. If you happen to take the SAT on a school day, your timeline will be a little different. School day tests aren’t released until 23-26 days after the test. Exact release dates for every test are provided on College Board’s website.
It’s also important to note when your selected colleges will receive your scores. Any colleges that you list as recipient schools will generally receive scores within 10 days of their release to you (if you take the essay, it will be within 10 days of your essay score release, so bump that timeline back a couple days). Any additional reports you order more than nine days after you take the SAT can take one to two weeks to process. If you are concerned about your score arriving past a deadline, you can request “rush reporting,” which only takes two to four business days to process.
