when do sat scores come out? and other sat score release facts you should know

here are a few reasons that your sat score release may have been delayed:

your score improvement was too large: if you’re retaking the sat and end up raising your score by over 200 points in a section, or 400 points total, the college board may double check your test for cheating. that kind of score improvement can happen (we’ve seen it!) but it’s pretty rare, so they may be taking a second look, just in case.

you were reported for cheating: if you weren’t cheating, everything should work out fine and your scores will just be delayed a little – but if you did cheat, it’s possible that your score will be canceled.

something was off with your test administration: the college board has very strict rules about how the sat is supposed to be administered. if your proctor didn’t follow the standard protocol, your sat score release could be delayed until the college board sorts things out.

your registration had some errors: at the beginning of the test, you’re asked to bubble in a whole bunch of information about yourself, for registration purposes. if you bubbled anything in this section incorrectly, the college board may have trouble finding you.

the college board is running behind: it happens!

if you haven’t received your scores on time, the best thing to do is call the college board and find out what’s up. to contact the college board from the united states, call: (866) 756-7346. for their international line, call: (212) 713-7789

you can access your sat scores online through your college board account. if you don’t have an account yet, learn how to create one here. easy enough!

a good sat score depends on where you want to go to college! all you need to do is find out the score range for your school of choice, and aim for the 75th percentile of that range — if you can score around the top 25% of what admitted students are averaging, you’ll have a good shot at acceptance.

the answer depends on many factors, including what we mentioned in the previous answer. if you think you could score significantly better the second time around, you may want to retake the sat.