Self-Reporting Test Scores Before AND After Deadlines for #UVA

This is a special Friday edition of the blog because we are being inundated with questions about submitting standardized test scores after application deadlines. Our instructions for reporting scores haven't really changed, but there seems to be more confusion about them this year than last. What's more, I'm starting to worry that many people aren't even reading the instructions. If the screen shot doesn't look familiar, please make sure you go over the application instructions on our website if you're applying to UVA.



I've gone over the instructions for submitting test scores in every live Q&A I've done on Instagram this fall and even created a highlight about submission (if you aren't familiar with Instagram, the highlights are the circles between the bio and the photos). I've tweeted. I've gone over it in every school visit. I haven't gone over it on the blog, so here we go...

Self-Report Some Test Scores on the Common App

We switched to using self-reported test scores last year and it worked beautifully. Students no longer need to pay ETS to send score reports (which are expensive and sometimes take weeks to arrive). All you have to do is report your SAT or ACT score on the Common App.

Submit Scores After Deadlines via the Student Portal

Once we get your application from the Common App and move it into our system at UVA, you will get an email with login credentials for your personalized student portal. The portal is where you can monitor the status of your application. You can also verify your decision plan, term, and residency status once the Office of Virginia Status determines it based on your answers to the residency questions on the Common App.

Scroll down a bit in your portal and you'll see the required components of the application that we've received, a link to the withdraw form, the uploader for sending us updates, the test scores we have on file, and a form for adding new test scores to your file.

Our System Automatically Superscores

We taught our system to superscore for us. When I open a file, I don't see all the scores a student has submitted. Our system just pulls the best sections for us to review. It will update what we see if you submit a score after deadline that contains a section with a higher score than what was previously reported.

The number of times you take a test isn't a factor. If I wanted to, I could dig around and find all of your scores, but we don't really have the time or interest in that. The system shows us the best sections, we take note of them, and we move on with the reading.


As always, I'm happy to answer questions in the comments!